


Better sorry than safe

by Papillon10



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: AU, Aged Up, Criminal/Vigilante AU, F/M, Final Battle, I'll add more as I go, Maybe OC Chloé, There's rape mentioned but nothing really happens, life swap au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-04-20 04:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 53,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14253516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papillon10/pseuds/Papillon10
Summary: The final battle goes horribly wrong for the five heroes of Paris when Ladybug gets hit by an akuma and is sent to another reality. For everything to be even better, the akuma gets destroyed and any chance of bringing the beloved heroine back seems lost. Add some reveals, quite a tragic story, a redemption arc and a journey through multiple realities and you get six people fighting to get back the ones they love, trying to understand themselves and to bring everything back to normal.It really sounds easier than it actually is...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I am soooo excited to post post this! I've been toying with the idea for quite a while and now I got down to writing seriously. Brace yourselves for 9 or so Alternate Universes combined in one fic :)) It might seem strange at first, but it gets better :)) I really hope you'll like it, both the idea and the writing. So, without further ado...

It was only natural for him to be calm. It was more than expected for him to sport a shit-eating grin and a cunning gleam in his eyes. It was an effing certainty he would have prepared a trap.

Papillon was full of surprises, though.


	2. The Final Battle

He had given them the invitation, he was the one who told them it was high time they finished things off. So with a date and a place, long sessions of practice started, scenarios were made up and old new heroes brought back.

Ladybug and Chat Noir had been a team for four years. 

Four years of increasingly difficult akumas, of recruiting friends as allies in the fight against evil, of enjoying the freedom responsibility paradoxically brought.

Four years of getting closer and closer, of becoming the best of friends; of starting to pick up hints about each other’s identities, but never coming close to revealing their enemy’s, an enemy who, against all odds, always managed to cover his tracks.

And it seemed that that fourth year was about to exit scene in the most dramatic way possible, marked by the final battle.

It was unnerving to say the least. 

The joy, the suspense, the adrenaline were all intertwined with the fear, the nervousness and the doubt. The stress was at its highest for both teens and the nights were only endless nightmares of what ifs. They had one week, nothing more and nothing less, to come up with the best course of action and to prepare themselves both physically and mentally for bringing it all to an end.

In the haste, in the haze, none of them even thought of confirming their suspicions.

The battle was consuming their minds leaving room for absolutely nothing else. 

With the consent of Mater Fu, the two had been able to give back the three Miraculouses that had been temporarily used in the past, Alya, Nino and Chloé making their comeback full-force. They could now attack with all their might, giving all they had, but that was no reassurance for the two partners. If anything they were even more stressed out now that their best friends were put at risk as well. 

Thus the pressure grew, the scenarios became even more complicated and the combos that were basically acts of reflex multiplied. 

The only good thing in the whole ordeal?

They were free to train to their heart’s desire. 

It was summer, there was no school, and for the five freshly-graduated teens it was easy to make up excuses of going out with friends or spending the night at somebody else’s so that no parent could suspect a thing. 

And so the days passed. And so the tiredness grew.

And so Papillon’s plan unfolded…

* * *

Gabriel was not a stupid man; nor was he foolish.

He had long since understood his akumas wouldn’t stand a chance against the two heroes with whom he was basically at war, so he started to conceive a new strategy. He needed time, but as he maintained the pretence of normalcy, no one would have noticed a thing. And no one noticed, indeed, as his plan took a more and more definite shape, as everything came together. And then, he was ready.

His enemies seemed to have accepted his invitation, if the appearance of the other three was any indication. At that point, it didn’t matter anymore, though. They were not the absolute perfect partners the bug and the cat were, they were not invincible like the two were when fighting together; they could be easily defeated.  
Papillon had the power. He had the ace up his sleeve, the ace that would turn the tables in his favour. And he had had the time to understand his foes, to know that they would worry and strategize and train and tire themselves in spite of knowing better.

He had the upper hand with or without the three allies his enemies had. But he also had enough wisdom to know he should not let his guard down, that he should not take his victory for granted. Been there, done that. Never again. 

So when the time came and the five heroes showed themselves on the warehouse he had indicated, Papillon didn’t waste time with meaningless explanations or empty threats. He kept his calm, and hid his plan, waiting for the most opportune moment to unleash it full-force. And he started doing what he did best: talking them into giving in.  
Gabriel was not a stupid man. Nor was he entirely selfish, or entirely selfless. 

He knew that what he was doing might have entered the first category. He knew he was, to some extent, selfish, indeed. But the one he was doing it for was her, his Emilie, his dear Emilie, who didn’t deserve what she got. And his son… the same son standing right in front of him, scowl on his face and baton in hands, ready to fight him. His son, who had managed to mislead him for so long, but not anymore. His son, whom he couldn’t stop, for the love of God, from sneaking out that one week, from training and stressing himself to death. His son whom he couldn’t bear taking the ring from, knowing he’d take his last bit of freedom in the process.

His son, whom he wanted happy again, happy all the time, not only when he jumped over rooftops and flirted shamelessly with a girl he didn’t even know and who didn’t even deserve him, and put himself in danger and fought monsters he had created himself. 

Gabriel wanted to stop playing the villain. He wanted his life back. 

And after that one night everything was going to be normal again, everything was going to be as it should have always been. No more Miraculouses, no more akumas, no more coldness and emptiness and pain. He would have his wife back and he’d stop keeping his son away from him in an attempt to keep him safe. He would finally stop being the monster he had become and get out of the dark he had slowly been engulfed in, for the sun would shine again in his world. 

Gabriel was not a stupid man. 

But he had lost much and he had suffered even more. 

And he was blinded.

* * *

The fight should have been easy. They had taken it all into account. They had expected him to try persuading them, so they had stilled themselves. What they did not expect was his knowing them. Who they were, what they wanted, what they feared. 

Hands on his cane, back straight and smirk in place, Papillon started his speech, one he didn’t even need to prepare in advance. He had been doing that very thing for years, even before becoming the evil mastermind he was now. Observing people, understanding them. And with his Miraculous it was even easier, the negative emotions, all of them, coming to him, letting him sneak into one’s mind and peek into one’s life.

He looked at them and assessed their positions and expressions. He knew who was behind each mask and he knew what each and every one of them was feeling. And when he spoke, he was careful not to reveal anything to the others, for he didn’t want things to get even more complicated after. He kept everything on a personal level, only between him and the one he’d be talking to at the moment, and every time the others would try to interrupt, he would switch his target and change his speech. He would fend off attacks, take steps back, take steps forward, but never cease to speak. And never make an attack himself.

He always knew just what to say to for the heroes to stiffen, for the fury in their eyes to be replaced by something else, always something else. He knew what to say to surprise them and to make them doubt themselves. But he didn’t want to hurt, didn’t want to destroy their lives. He wanted to make them understand it was useless to fight. He wanted to make the five teens understand that the world was cruel and merciless, that the world was dark and poisonous and that they were fighting a lost battle, maybe not against him, but against evil, because each and every time there would be someone to come and wipe off all the good that had been done and reset everything, or make it worse than it had been before. 

The five were strong and it was clear as day that they were confident they were doing the right thing. But they were not unshakeable and just a little bit of hesitation was enough for him.  
He never looked at his son, though. He talked to him, yes. But never looked at him. For he knew he couldn’t be as convincing as he was with the others and, frankly, he didn’t even want to try. So instead of becoming himself the one to fight the lost battle, he focused all his convincing powers on Ladybug when her turn came, he focused entirely on the petite girl in whose eyes the flame of fury and conviction never stopped blazing, no matter what he’d say and to whom. He gave everything he had, trying to make her give up her miraculous willingly, so he would not be forced to put in motion the second part of his plan; he gave everything he had, not really caring about her feelings anymore, about not making her suffer or destroying her life. She was just a girl - kind and bubbly and fiery, yes, but she was a girl who had come close to discovering his secret and who didn’t consider any of the reasons he might have had although she was mostly aware of them, didn’t consider his son or himself, and she even had the nerve to pretend to be in love with his son all the while never giving the time of the day to his alter-ego. He couldn’t know everything about everyone, but he had seen and understood enough to despise her and even though he had been careful with the others, she would feel no mercy from him after all.

But she was a force to be reckoned with. And only when not even torturing her with her deepest and darkest insecurities and fears worked, only then did Gabriel wipe off the smirk and gave the signal that warned the akuma positioned nearby that it was time for him to enter scene and bring down the curtain.

* * *

Papillon was playing dirty. All of them had felt it on their own skin, but Marinette took the worst hits.

Not Ladybug.

Marinette.

Papillon took her anxiety and her doubts and fears and insecurities, he took every nightmare she had ever faced and every tear she had ever shed and threw it all at her , but in that moment he could not touch her. Because all those were weaknesses and they were not Ladybug’s. They were Marinette’s and Marinette was not there at the moment; she was somewhere buried deep inside of her, curled into herself and falling apart. Ladybug was not allowed to feel sorry for herself in moments like this, so if it meant that she would rid her city and her friends of the evil in front of them, then she would gladly detach herself from herself, she would become two different persons even though seeing the Ladybug in Marinette and the Marinette in Ladybug was something she had been trying to do since the very start. 

She was not about to give in, but the offensive on the emotional side was not all Papillon seemed to have in store. The akuma took them all by surprise, for it seemed to appear out of nowhere. Instinct kicked in, but the new enemy was faster. He grabbed his pocket watch, looked straight into Ladybug’s fiery eyes and then there was black.  
Nothing but black.

* * *

When Ladybug fell, Chat had almost reached the akuma, Carapace besides him, shield in hand, ready to defend his partner if needed; Bee was up, up, trompo ready for attack and Rena was running towards Papillon being the only one who had never stopped watching the villain. But Papillon was the only one who knew what to expect, so he was the only one beside de heroine when she hit the ground. 

His booming voice stopped the two boys in their tracks.

“You didn’t want to believe me! But now see for yourselves! If there had ever been any hope for you to win this fight, it is all lost now!” 

Chat Noir’s expression became ferocious as he really took in the scene before him. A quick look between him and Carapace was enough to establish the next course of action, standing back to back, with Chat facing Papillon and his friend ready to fend off whatever attack the akuma had in mind.

“What did you do to her?” he growled, trying to keep his composure and his voice even, but he couldn’t suppress the turmoil setting in inside of him for too long, and when he did give in to in, he bared his teeth and let his voice rise. “What. Did. You. DO. TO HER?” 

He almost acted on impulse and attacked, but Carapace, although still focused on the other evil at hand, reached behind him and grabbed his friend’s arms in an attempt to stop him for being rash. He succeeded, but it didn’t make Chat any less angry. And it didn’t make them any less uneasy. 

“She is not dead. Yet.” Papillon said, signalling to the akuma to come next to him. It was a now or never kind of situation and if Papillon had assumed they would simply let the new threat walk away, then he sure as hell was in for a surprise. If they let the akuma go it might as well have been the end of ell their attempts at winning, for the villain would call back the akuma, would destroy any chance of purifying it, of bringing the spotted heroine back. So they let the hours of training prove their worth. Queen Bee’s trompo stopped the akuma in its tracks, and Carapace and Rena jumped to hold Papillon Back at the same time Chat called for that one Cataclysm that would have effectively trapped the akumatized person. 

Only… usually they fought one enemy, not two. And if there was to be a second one, then it had definitely never been the mastermind behind it all. By holding him back, neither Rena nor Carapace managed to stop him from telling the akuma what to do as well. The new puppet of the villain received the order to jump, to get away. And so he did, but in the wrong direction. In all the haze he did not notice Chat aiming for the same spot near which he had decided to land in the spur of the moment. Chat did try to avoid him, he almost succeeded, but desperate to salvage the akuma itself, desperate to not make things worse than they already were and thinking that Chat’s target was from the beginning the akumatized object, Hawkmoth freed his arm and threw his cane hitting Chat. And in the process, doing exactly the opposite of what he had intended. 

The boy’s eyes widened as his claws grazed the pocket watch the akumatized person had taken out, trying to use it to protect himself. Slowly, almost painfully, the object crumpled to ashes and so did the butterfly struggling to escape. Behind was left an unconscious man and a stricken superhero. 

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” came the villain’s desperate shout. “You destroyed it!”

Chat tried to compose himself. That had never happened before. LB had always been the one to take care of the akumas before, not him. At least… at least there was no more akuma… everything… everything would go back to normal… right?

He voiced his thoughts, trying to make them sound confident. He even attempted to grin, but it was obviously strained. However, no pretence was needed anymore when Papillon responded. His reaction spoke volumes itself. The grin became a grimace and the heroes’ faces sported conflicting emotions.

“You don’t understand! You destroyed it! No Miraculous Cure could reverse the damage because there was no Lucky Charm involved during the fight! There is not even a Ladybug to do it and there is no akuma to call back now! I can’t call it back, I can’t reverse it myself, I can’t do anything now.” The man managed to free himself completely now and he seemed to be putting a lot of energy in maintaining his calm after that first shout, but it was clear everything had gone completely wrong. He closed his eyes and pinched his nose. After a moment of dead silence and worried glances passed between the four superheroes, he opened his eyes and spoke again, sneering.

“I did everything to avoid exactly this thing.” He started again with a chilly voice. “I did everything to avoid losing anyone, the entire purpose of this whole charade was exactly the opposite, in fact. Yet here we are, and you might have been reluctant to help me even after having Ladybug hit by the akuma, but now you have no choice but to do it. That akuma was the guarantee everything would work, now everything will have to be done blindly and it will certainly take much longer than intended. There is a chance it will work on Ladybug, too, but…” 

Rena was the first to speak, losing any trace of fear or doubt in favour of pure anger. 

“What the fuck are you saying there?! What the hell do you mean there is no way to reverse it all, why is LB still knocked out?!” 

“Ladybug is not dead,” he sighed, throwing the girl a tired and somehow annoyed look, “but she won’t wake up either. She won’t call for her Miraculous Cure and undo everything, she won’t return even if there is no akuma anymore. It’s over, don’t you understand?”

The man took a moment to observe the kids. He could easily read them all… except his son.

Adrien… his expression was beyond unreadable. All the fury and then the doubt from earlier were wiped off, replaced by emptiness. It was him that spoke once again, the emptiness slowly replaced by something much worse. 

“I don’t know what kind of illusion Rena put you under, because it couldn’t be anything more than this. Or maybe you simply like to live in your own dreams. I don’t know which one of those is true, but I know it is not possible for us to have lost.” his voice was flat, his back stiff. As he took a step forward, he let himself continue, “I will admit you took us by surprise with your akuma and you weakened us with what you’ve been saying, but you won’t stomp all over us! Ladybug is not dead and she will wake up! ”

The green in the boy’s eyes should’ve meant life and freshness and spring and joy. But as they bore into his grey ones, Gabriel could’ve sworn no winter had been colder than those eyes, that no fire had ever burnt with a stronger flame, that no knife had ever been sharper. 

“There is a chance that she will indeed wake up.” Gabriel managed to say, “It is risky, but there is a chance she will wake up if I follow through on my plan, regardless of the inconvenience of losing the akuma. If you decide to get along, you will see why I did all this and you’ll see your assumptions were wrong.”

Queen Bee could not resist anymore, all the pent up emotions finally raging and giving her the power to talk. 

“You fucking mean to tell us that you have basically killed the one this city loves most, the strongest human being we will probably ever encounter, scratch that, the best human being not only the strongest, on a shitty chance that she might get back?! That you didn’t want this very thing to happen but took the chance anyway?! And now you have the audacity to tell us to ally with you hoping we would understand how you want to obtain the ultimate power or whatever shit you’re going for?!”

Icy was her gaze and icy were her words. Her voice was poisonous and her demeanour could have as well belonged to a lioness. But her knees were weak when she landed, and the ground was slipping from under her. 

“It is indeed “the best human being” I intend to bring back with the help of your Miraculouses. But that is not also the one you know as Ladybug. As I have already said, I might be able to do something about her, too, but it’s just a chance. You might want…”

“SHUT UP!” exploded Rena. “Just shut up already! If you think for only one second that we will help than you must be crazier than any of us has ever thought you fucking were! Yes LB had her weak points and her flaws but fuck it! Everyone has them. Don’t you fucking think there’s someone who deserves to be brought back more than she does! She was not a super-heroine for nothing, for fuck’s sake! We will get you, we will bring her back!”

“You might want to reconsider that, fox. I am the only one who knows what to do; kill me and she might as well be dead, indeed. You at least have a chance to have her back so you might as well listen and see what I have to say in all this, Miss Césaire.”

He didn’t want the reveal. It only happened in one of the worst case scenarios. But… but he needed to regain the upper hand, he needed to show the he held the power and that they could not run from him, with or without the mask. At least, he would not reveal himself, too…

The girl was visibly taken aback and she almost tripped when she took a step back. But she did not let herself be weak for long. Those few seconds were enough, though. The villain beat her and the others to talking, and meeting the gaze of each and every one of the four, he continued,

“You might think of Fu. Don’t. I have met the old man, it’s only the tip of the ice-berg that he is aware of when it comes to these powers. He does not know what your Miraculouses are able to do, should they be in the right hands, or at least he doesn’t know all of it.”

“Oh so the right hands are apparently yours, aren’t they?! The same hands holding the terror Paris has been through this past years!” managed the turtle-themed hero to utter, getting over the surprise of finding out his girlfriend was apparently one of his crime-fighting partners (which should not… have… been so surprising actually now that he thought about it…). 

“I won’t deny that it might seem a little far-fetched, mister Lahiffe. But wouldn’t you say the same if I told you that a childish boy who tends act impulsively and to be forgetful, who tends to abuse the use of slang and who has an unhealthy obsession with music was also in possession of a Miraculous, and even the Guardian’s one for that matter?” 

Nino’s expression hardened and he opened his mouth to speak again, but he was beaten to it. Not by his girlfriend, not by the cat-boy beside him. But by the one he expected less to intervene in such a situation.

“Oh come on!” said Queen Bee scoffing. 

The bee heroine was not as warm as the other heroes. She was quieter, more practical and her words were often sharp. But she had a good heart, she was doing everything she could in order to help. Unbeknownst to her partners, she was the most adamant to prove herself. She didn’t speak much because she was afraid she would say all the wrong things. She didn’t get too close, afraid that she would, inevitably, hurt whoever it was that she warmed up to. But she tried and they all appreciated her. So when she continued so fervently, both Alya and Nino were taken aback a little. Except for Chat who only gave a slight smile.

“So what if he’s childish from time to time?! I don’t see him making demons out of butterflies of all things and taking advantage of people’s feelings! It was far-fetched for me of all people to get this Miraculous, but at least I am not the villain you could have avoided to become! You had the best opportunity to be one of the best people! You could have been the hero here, but noooo, you go and do everything the other way round! You are in no fucking position to come and tell us we are who we are, doing what we do! You are in no fucking position to claim you know us, telling us all the shit you told us earlier and you have no fucking right to decide who is and isn’t worthy of shit!”

“Big words, Miss Bourgeois…”

“Get over it, I’ve already admitted it myself. Got anything new?” she interrupted him, rolling her eyes and avoiding with all her might to look at her partners, knowing she would not like the look in their eyes. At least… at least she had known all this hero thing would be something temporary, at least she would not be too disappointed when they’d take her comb. At least she’d get to put that shitty old man in his place.

But the man did not react according to any of their expectations. He only smiled sadly. 

“That was not how I meant it actually. Those were big words coming from you, indeed, considering you know first-hand how it is to wake up and to realize you wouldn’t see one of your most precious persons anymore. Big words, considering you are the one who knows best what it is like to be both the hero and the villain. Am I wrong, Chloé?”

“So how does it all fit with you, oh you wise one, huh?” intervened Alya, surprising the girl, “She got it right there, you don’t have the right to judge any of us, her most of all considering that she was indeed one of the worst people, no offense. Now fucking look at her! She’s the one on the right side of this fight, not you, mister misunderstood hero! What the fuck do you mean with all that rant, anyway? One would say you were indeed some kind of hero! I get it that you lost someone but don’t fucking go and make others feel the same loss!”

“You see, that is exactly why I’ve been trying to get you to listen. I’ve never been a hero. I’ve never been some kind of vigilante, but I had a partner nonetheless. She was the most precious human being on this Earth, she was the one who made everything worth it, she made life beautiful. She was my everything, she was the mother of my son and one day she simply disappeared. All because these very Miraculouses you treasure so much.” his voice was becoming sadder and sadder, his demeanour softening, but the heroes were not ready to accept whatever he’d say and the fire in their eyes remained. Gabriel continued nonetheless, changing the initial plan once again, giving in to the temptation of finally telling someone the whole truth.

“And so the time might as well have stopped and the sun never risen again because nothing has felt the same ever since. I tried everything to get her back, but the Yin and Yang Miraculouses are what it has always been needed. It’s the creation and the destruction that would bring her back to this world, that would make everything good again! This is why I did everything that I did! I want to stop, too. I want to stop keeping my own son at an arm’s length in order to protect him from this, I want to stop creating akumas. I want to stop fighting as the evil one and I want you to stop endangering yourselves! By doing this I would have my world back and my son would be happy again and I might be able to do something so Ladybug comes back, too, but even if she doesn’t, don’t you see the big picture? She knew what she was doing, she knew what it meant to be a super-hero. She knew what the risks were and that there might be a day she wouldn’t get to return home. This is an honourable way to die, it is something she would be proud of. And she is not even dead, she was sent to an alternate reality. She gets to live her life, she gets to be whatever she wants to be, meet her soulmate and make friends and all, only she won’t be with these you anymore, instead taking the place of the Ladybug in that world. Time flows differently there, she might have already lived a life and now be somewhere else, in another one, starting over. I will do my best to bring her back, for it is not the most favourable course of action, but…”

But he did not get the chance to finish that one statement.

All through this heartfelt speech his eyes were glued to Adrien, making his words all the more meaningful for the boy in question. The black cat hero sported a strange look of his own. “Like father, like son“, they say. They are not wrong. 

The villain seemed honest, seemed to be indeed pouring his heart out, with all its wrongness, yes, but not lying one bit. Something was missing though. Adrien knew it, felt it. But he also thought he had put the puzzle pieces in their right places, and that that one missing information was in his possession, too. 

His mind was working a mile a minute, denying, refusing to accept the conclusion he was slowly coming to, but also denying to un-see it. He somehow refused to go back in the dark, all the while being afraid of the light. If he was right… then… then… he really didn’t know what he’d do then. Everything that man in front of him was saying was wrong. But he could see the concealed desperation in his eyes, could see it was the last chance a man had to bring back the perfect world he had had. 

“But reconsider what you’ve said.” Interrupted Chat, taking a step forward and ignoring the beeping of his ring. He had two more minutes of his identity being a secret, but who cared anymore?

“You might want to reconsider and see the hypocrisy in your words. If this woman was indeed the person you have been describing, than what would she have said knowing that for her to come back a whole lot more people had to suffer from the disappearance of another girl, with her entire life in front of her and all the possibilities in the world? What would she say, knowing you’ve put her above everyone else, above the safety of an entire city, above the safety of her son and the one he loves? Your world started to crumble so you crumbled other worlds. You did all of this, so what am I supposed to do now?”

Chat Noir was beyond serious and by the look in his eyes, by the way he was looking at him, Papillon could safely assume he had put the pieces together. But he was saying… that… that could not be right… could it? 

“I believe it is safe to say you know who each of us is behind the mask, correct?”

“That…that is correct indeed” now he was struggling to speak. His throat felt tight and his mouth dry. He had done the right think… what happened to Ladybug… that was just an inconvenience… he would… he would make everything alright, wouldn’t he? But his musings were interrupted once again by his son, who gave a slight nod and continued. 

“Then there is no point in hiding when my transformation wears off. I…” he coughed and tried to looked somewhere else, but also didn’t want to give the man he believed more and more to be his own father that he was even remotely agreeing to what he had done, so he mustered his courage again and returned his gaze as fiery as before. “I understand why you did what you did. But it doesn’t make it right. You were selfish, you put so many innocent people in danger and now you even admit you might have destroyed a life and a family. I don’t know who Ladybug is, but I know she is loved and I know her life is important regardless of who is under that mask. I know that we will bring her back, and you will help with or without your consent. You will pay for you crimes, but you are not a lost man. I… do believe we could help you, too.”

Adrien was confused, was pained and hurt. But he really understood. His mother had really been the sun on earth, she was warm and kind and everything anyone would have ever needed or wanted. She was perfect and suddenly she wasn’t anymore. He understood how hurt his father was, he understood what it meant for him to lose so much so suddenly and he suspected behind the entire ordeal was a story much more complex that he and his partners would need to hear later. But he also knew what pain could do to people. His father was not a bad man. He did all that for love, and as he had admitted, he did it for his son too, for him. He took advantage of people, he scared them, but had had his boundaries; he didn’t kill or hurt or maimed. He had been wrong, but he could be better, and the boy hoped his partners could see that, too. 

To say that Gabriel Agreste, renowned fashion designer and infamous villain was rendered speechless was an understatement. He had been confident his actions were the right ones, but he was also sure Adrien wouldn’t think the same. His fears were proved right indeed, but his son also proved to have had taken after his mother more than Gabriel had ever imagined. His partners, though… they were not as ready to help the villain become what he had once been again.

“You’re kidding, right, Chat? You can’t… you can’t be serious…!” 

The boy turned towards his incredulous friends as his ring gave the second to last beep. Alya was the one who had spoken, her expression the epitome of shock. The other two decided to keep quiet, but their brows were furrowed, too. 

“I’m not. I’m not kidding. I know he did a lot of wrong things, he will pay for them; we can’t let him get away with everything he’s done. But what kind of heroes are we, if we don’t at least give him the chance to atone for his sins? I don’t want you to believe I say everything that I say just because… just because… well you’ll see why… but I do believe we should give him a chance to right the wrong he’s done.

Chloé opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. Before speaking she seemed to be fighting with herself over something. With a grimace, she finally said: “I hate to say it but he might be right… it would be… hypocritical of me to say otherwise…” she managed to look at the other two with something resembling guilt in her eyes, but then, as she turned her gaze towards the villain, her expression changed drastically. “Don’t get me wrong, I hate him with a burning passion, he fucking got me akumatized two times, but… but I guess everyone’s got a chance to become a better man and cat-boy here’s got a point. What superhero doesn’t want to help people become better?”

Chat turned his gaze to Carapace next. He knew Nino had a heart of gold, but he had suffered because of Papillon, too. 

“I don’t understand what you said with you not doing it because of some unknown reason but I guess Bee’s right. You…you’ve got a point. We won’t let him alone for a second though! And you, sir stupid, will bring Ladybug back!” the boy concluded all the while looking at the stiff figure of Papillon. 

“Alya…” Adrien tried next, trying to make the most of the final seconds as Chat Noir. He wanted to hear their honest opinions, not the pity for him, because he knew that would come sooner or later, too.  
The girl in question threw him a hard look. 

“I don’t have a good feeling about it, Chat. I don’t know if he’s lying or not but I sure as hell know he will bring LB back! Yeah, everybody’s got the right to be better, but he’s been fucking terrorizing us for four years and that is not something to ignore! But I hate to admit that if even half of what he said we actually do need him… I hate it, I hate this whole ordeal, but I guess we’ll have to put up with him. You better have a…”

She didn’t get to finish. Adrien’s ring chose that very moment to give its final beep and his transformation fell apart, leaving behind the green-eyed boy they all knew. Plagg chose to remain quiet, a scowl on his face as he took in the scene in front of him.

“…plan… Nothing surprises me anymore…”

“Yeah… you should probably wait until he drops his own transformation…” Adrien grimaced. He turned his gaze to Papillon, eyes hardening again. “Don’t you think you won’t drop that transformation! I don’t know what you had planned to do from this moment on, but you should’ve said goodbye to that since you made me miss with the Cataclysm. You will tell us the whole story and then we will decide what to do next.”

Gabriel sighed and dropped his gaze. The corners of his lips switched up with a barely visible motion. 

“You are just like her…” he said before he let his transformation fall. He seemed to want to say something, but Chloé knew better than to let him speak again.

“No. Nope. You… shut up. Just… shut the fuck up.” She interrupted, screwing her eyes shut and making a face that clearly said she was so done with him. 

“Well…that explains a lot…” tried Nino. 

“Does that mean… did you… did you know…?”

Adrien let himself sit down on the rooftop, head tucked between the knees. For a moment his whole demeanour screamed defeat, but he didn’t want to be weak and especially not in front of his father from all people, so he pushed away the pain, the confusion and the doubt to return to them later, when he’d be alone and sat up. He had made up his mind to be strong and so he’d be. Going straight towards the girl laying on the ground alone, he answered Alya question.

“No, I didn’t. I figured it out today. I wish I did, it would’ve saved us a lot of trouble. But the damage is done. We don’t have all day and I’m sure LB’s parents won’t be glad if she doesn’t come home too soon. So you better start talking.” He didn’t want to call him “father” but he didn’t want to call him Gabriel either, so he stuck to calling him nothing at all.

The boy was near his fallen partner by the time he finished talking so he slowly sat again and, carefully, tucked her in his arms, holding her tightly and never taking his gaze away from her. He didn’t want to look into his friends’ eyes yet, he didn’t want to see the pity and the judgement there. There were more important matters at hand than the fact that he, the hero, and the villain were related. 

Where was Ladybug when he needed her most?

“Hand it over.” Came Chloé’s sharp voice from somewhere to his right. She was probably talking to his father. Smart girl. He forced himself to lift his eyes.

He couldn’t see his father’s expression, but Chloé’s no-nonsense look could make anyone cower and obey. Her palm was stretched out, obviously waiting for the man to give her his miraculous, but Gabriel didn’t do anything. Chloé was not a girl that would wait for anybody, though.

“You didn’t believe we would let you keep your Miraculous, did you?” she said scoffing, but Gabriel laughed humourlessly and gave her a response instead of an object.

“You do know that I could take on any of you at any moment and probably win, right? I need my Miraculous if you want all this to work.”

““Probably” being the key word, here.” She said, leaning forward, her look becoming more and more menacing, “You forget that you are not transformed, though, and that we could have taken you if there was no akuma and if you didn’t start talking your shit, which by the way, won’t work anymore now that we know what a shitty person was giving us the crap. Don’t’ make me regret giving you a chance, although I think I might already do it. You better give it yourself, Gabe, or I’ll take it myself. We decide if and when you need that.” no world could have been more mocking than the “Gabe” she threw him.  
She was indeed….a scary person; a force to be reckoned with, petite as she was. The purple kwami that had been standing by his father side seemed to be scared. It flew to the girl’s side, and Gabriel seemed to give in. He took a brooch and handed it to her, resigned. 

“I believe… I owe you a thorough explanation.” The man finally uttered, turning to look at Adrien, still trying to look imposing. It wasn’t really working. 

“Oh you can bet you do!” retorted Alya as sarcastically as she could while coming to Adrien’s side together with Nino. Chloé chose to come too, but she kept her distance, hands crossed and scowl in place. 

Gabriel took a deep breath and began his story, one of a woman that seemed to exude kindness and warmth, a woman that had managed to crack the ice he was made of and bring him the sun and the moon and the stars and how he would have done the same for her in a heartbeat. He told them the story of the woman who wanted to help people more than anything else until one day when she was able to become a true hero. He told them the story of the old hero with a peacock Miraculous that just vanished one day, only to reaper years later as the villain; as the villain who wanted to prove herself but chose the wrong woman to sacrifice, for she was stopped, and the heroine was dragged along with her in an unknown he had been struggling to understand ever since.  
He told them the story of the woman who sacrificed herself without anyone else ever knowing about it, leaving only a memory and a Miraculous that did not belong to her behind. 

“From then on-” he continued-” I swore to do anything to bring her back, I drowned in research, I found more information and I despised the Miraculouses with all I had, but I needed them to save her. I had the one that had made her disappear, but I couldn’t bring myself go anywhere near it. So I kept on searching. Until I found the brooch and Nooroo. He was not what it was needed, but it was helpful nonetheless. There were no traces of the creation and destruction Miraculouses, but I had to find them, and I knew that the only thing that would make them resurface again with be the rise of a villain. So I became that villain and took the matters into my own hands…”

“So you just decided to take them by force, because what? It would’ve hurt to tell this entire stuff from the beginning?! We could have helped, we wouldn’t have wasted four fucking years fighting each other!”

Managed Adrien to utter slowly, his voice low and seething. 

“You just decided to become a villain exactly like the one who took mom away?”

“I did not know that woman as a villain, Adrien. For us she was still a hero. I had no more trust in people with such power. How could I know you wouldn’t turn up the same after I asked that of you, especially since you already knew me as the villain?! I didn’t even trust myself, that’s why I kept you far away from me! I don’t expect you to understand me completely or to sympathise with me. But you said so yourself, give me a chance. I will bring your mother back! She didn’t deserve to go like this and as long as I can do something about it, I will!”

“Funny how Ladybug doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in this discussion, though. Because she did deserve to go exactly like that, didn’t she? For her it was something honourable, and anyway there is nothing we can do about it.” Adrien’s voice was poisonous and his eyes held all the fury in a panther’s ones. Gabriel wouldn’t have wanted to do anything more that to deny that his son was right. But he couldn’t. Not entirely at least. He screwed his eyes shut and pressed his mouth in a thin line. 

“I know…” he tried after a moment, “I know it seems wrong. I know it is wrong. I didn’t want it to come to this. I didn’t although I do hate Ladybug. But it happened. And we will find a solution to all of it. I give you my word, we will!”

Plagg was unusually attentive to everything. He didn’t even finish the cheese in Adrien’s pocket in a gulp as always. No, on his charge’s shoulder, he was sporting a deep frown and was waiting for the right time to intervene himself. And the moment presented itself once Gabriel stopped talking. 

“Did you at least try talking to Duusuu? At all?” he said, floating in front of the man, and promptly shutting Adrien’s mouth. The boy didn’t take it well, the frown that had deepened with his father’s last words only deepening even further, but he didn’t talk over the tiny god, choosing to wait instead.

“I did. Nooroo advised me to do so, but the kwami didn’t have all the answers I wanted. They had disappeared with that woman.”

“So you decided to create that one akuma.” It was not a question, it was not mocking, it was not anything. Plagg was simply stating the fact he had managed to understand before the teenagers behind him. 

“Indeed.”

“That akuma was special, wasn’t he?” asked Adrien, seeing that his kwami wouldn’t have brought up such a thing if he didn’t see it as important, and certainly he wouldn’t have used such a serious tone if he hadn’t seen more behind what his father had been saying. 

“He was.” answered the man with a nod. “It took me three years to gather enough magic to create him, the most complex one yet, one that could travel between dimensions and bring the answers that would complete the puzzle. Few, indeed, but important.”

“Answers such as…”

“Duusuu told me she had taken her Miraculous off since retiring, activating it again only to transform without a word to spare, to do what she did and then to disappear. So the kwami couldn’t tell me  
anything besides the fact that it was part of her magic whatever it was that she had done, but it was used in another way, it was used wrongly so it damaged everything. And the only help would be the most powerful magic: that coming from the Miraculouses of Creation and Destruction used together. But I was also told that that would probably not be enough. That there had still been something off about all that. So I wanted to know why, I wanted to know exactly what magic had been used and if it would be enough to have the ring and the earrings to fight it, and what exactly to use them for. That is why the akuma was so important, because he could’ve brought me the exact answers to those questions. And he could warn me about the consequences.”

“This is so messed up,” groaned Alya. “At least we know what you want and why and you better not be lying!” at this she threw him a pointed look, and getting to her feet, she continued, “But we still need to discuss what we do with Ladybug… is there really no chance that she would wake up on her own?”

“She might. But it could take months. Even years. She’d return to her reality when she’d rediscover it. And considering the fact that the powers of this akuma were designed to help answer question, she’d rediscover this reality when she answered her own, even if she knew or not about them. Basically she’d need to understand herself and do everything in such a way that she doesn’t get lost in what certain worlds have to offer… and that might be almost impossible in some cases, even though every reality lacks something, for none is hers.”

“What then? How will she even live if she can’t eat?! What do we tell her parents?! How do we even find her parents?!” said Nino looking to Adrien. “You’re her partner, you know her best. Any ideas?”

The boy looked at his father again.

“You know who she is, don’t you?”

“I do. And you know her. So don’t worry about being unable to bring her to her home.”

And that was it. All the confirmation Adrien needed to confirm his burning suspicions.

“Why have I ever doubted it was you…?” he whispered almost reverently, the words not meant for anyone but the sleeping girl in his arms. 

“As for keeping her alive, I will personally ensure she will be artificially fed as long as it will be needed.” His tone was neutral, but there was something in his eyes that screamed contempt. It did not go unnoticed, but there were matters more important at hand.

“Just to make it clear before we do anything else-” spoke Adrien, coldness seeping once again into his voice- “you’re not off the hook yet. We still don’t trust you so don’t think you get anywhere near our Miraculouses, or yours for that matter. You will also come with us to talk to Master Fu and hear what he has to say about all this.”

“Your personality has certainly changed over the years, Adrien. You’ve become a true leader,” was Gabriel’s response, a small smile that seemed almost proud on his lips. The boy, though, wouldn’t let himself be impressed or warmed by that. 

“Not thanks to you.”

“Sooooo….” tried Chloé, bringing them on the right track again, “I don’t think it would be a good idea to bring her to her parents like that. I mean I doubt they know she’s Ladybug and that’s not our secret to tell…”

“That would mean we would get to know who she is, though…” said Alya hesitantly. She knew how adamant Ladybug was about keeping their identities a secret and she didn’t want to betray her trust.

“Yeah, but she would understand. And we would need to stay by her side anyway until we get her back. Plus, it really wouldn’t be fair Hawk Moth himself to know and you not. All on board with this?”

The nods and the muffled agreements were all the confirmation he needed before he unscrewed slightly one of her earrings. The pink light went over the girl’s body leaving behind a still sleeping Marinette and a very distressed Tikki. Plagg was by her side in seconds, the two of them whispering back and forth in an obvious haste. As for the rest… so many revelations in one day were apparently not enough to numb them to this last one.

“And that my friends,” started Alya with an even voice, but with eyes wide, “was the end of my journalistic career.”

In spite of the circumstances, Adrien couldn’t help but snort. “Don’t beat yourself up, we’re talking about magic here, of course it would be hard to figure out who’s behind each mask.”

“He did it though...But how, by the way?” her suspicious tone and searching gaze went almost unnoticed by Gabriel, who only shrugged. 

“I lived in the same house with Chat Noir after all, and he could sneak out and eat camembert so much until I noticed something was off. Throw a suspicious ring and a book that had pictures of all the Miraculouses and you practically get your answers, because after figuring out his, I just paid more attention to the ones he hang out with and their emotions and the answers came on their own. Indeed, there were times when my conviction was not as strong, but in the end it turned out I was right.” 

“She called it, you know?” said the green-eyed boy, slowly rising to his feet and being extra careful to the girl in his arms. “She pretty much had you all figured out that first year after the incident with Volpina. Even I didn’t make that connection and I was the one who had found the book in the first place. But she did. Only for you to akumatize yourself and make us get back to square one.”  
Gabriel snorted, a snort that could pretty much confirm that he actually knew that. However they were distracted from it when Tikki flew to Adrien, with a worried expression on her little face.

“Chat, take care of her. I could still feel some of the things she felt, but it was really faint. Plagg and I need to talk to the other kwamis, too… do you think… I mean I don’t want to leave her alone…but at the same time…”

“You feel like Master Fu should hear, too, right?” the small fairy nodded, and Adrien continued,

“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll be with her all the time, at least one of us, so you can go without worrying she’d be alone. But I still need Plagg to bring her home as Chat Noir.”

“Of course,” she said, giving a small smile.

After transforming himself once again, Adrien looked at his friends. “Someone should come with me, but we shouldn’t leave him alone, too.”

“Oh don’t worry, I won’t let him out of my sight.” Chloé’s smirk left Gabriel unfazed but it would’ve sent chills down anyone else’s spine. 

“I’ll stay with her. We still don’t want him dead…” sighed Nino, rolling his eyes 

“Why don’t you go straight to Fu’s? This way he’ll hear the whole story and after we ensure Mari is safe and sound home, Chat can take Trixx and come, too. I’ll stay with her as Alya.” 

“First, we should go take the other Miraculous, too, don’t you think?” asked Gabriel, raising an eyebrow.

With a grumble, they agreed it was indeed best to do so from the start, so finally, muttering something that sounded suspiciously much like swear words, Queen Bee took off with one equally annoyed  
Gabriel Agreste held by the arms, Carapace following them from rooftop to rooftop. 

* * *

To deal with Marinette’s parents was not an easy task. The Dupain-Chengs were getting ready for bed when Chat made his appearance with the unconscious Marinette in his arms, Alya in tow, bursting through the door and saying she had seen him with Mari and wanted to make sure he was alright. The story was simple and mostly true: the girl had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and got caught up in an akuma attack. Ladybug couldn’t do anything yet, taking a hit herself. The two of them were the only victims of that one akuma and nobody else was in danger anymore, but they were still working on solving the rest of the problem; however they did not know how long it would take until they’d bring her back, so until then, her safety and protection would be granted by the heroes themselves. 

Needless to say, her parents were worried sick, suddenly as white as ghosts and Alya was only slightly better even though she had much more information. Once in her room, once every little detail of what was to happen with Marinette was discussed, the hero agreed, reluctantly, to leave, Trixx holding tightly to his collar.


	3. Partners in crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette has been one of the most infamous thieves in Paris for two years. She loves what she's doing, she's more than good at it, and the job has its perks. That is... until a faint doubt makes its way into her mind and some questions arise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here! a few hours later than I would've wanted, but it's here! I loved making Marinette and Adrien criminals and I really hope you won't find it boring, because I may or may not have a talent for adding details. Like... too many details.  
> Anyway, I made some changes here, so that I could work with the plot I had in mind. For instance Adrien first went to school when he was 16. The rest you'll figure out yourselves :)))  
> By the way, I'm pretty sure these chapters with Marinette's alternate relities could be safely read as stand-alones :)))

Marinette woke up with a groan and a string of courses escaping her lips, all aimed at the blaring alarm. Her head was pounding worse than ever and the light of morning that usually didn’t bother her all that much, was now almost blinding. 

It was a Saturday, for shit’s sake, not even a school day, but it wouldn’t have been any better if it were. She just had to promise her parents she’d help in the bakery, didn’t she? Because why not?! Why not wake up at five and work your ass off before most people even wake up?!

No amount of groaning and complaining could have saved her, she was very much aware of that, so she just resigned to her horrible fate and got out of the oh so inviting bed. At least the night had been a pretty good one, it was worth staying up so late. 

Of course she made breaking news again. Well not herself, herself... not all of herself. Not the part of her that woke up at five to help her parents and was madly clumsy and went to school and shit, but the part of her that leapt over rooftops and did everything she was not supposed to and made half of the most infamous pair in all of Paris. She tried not to snort as she heard the reporter say exactly where and when the last escapade of the duo took place and saw the victim complain about his loss. As if he needed those money! Yeah, sure. 

…So why was there a knot in her stomach when she thought about the man’s expression? 

“What the hell”, she chastised herself under the breath, a frown now adorning her brow. That was something that never bothered her. There had never been knots in her stomach, or blurry thoughts nagging at her. She clearly needed to get a grip of herself because nothing, nothing, made it different now. So giving a slight shake of the head, she stopped entertaining the shitty ideas her mind was starting to come up with and got to work once again.

Or at least she tried. She tried distracting herself with the baking and the customers that started to fill the bakery one by one, but the faint doubt didn’t fade away; it grew… and grew…

It was stupid to think like that. It was. She had been doing that for four years and she had no intention of stopping now, not now when she was in deeper than ever. 

She liked what she was. And she loved what she was doing. From the very first time when she stole those scraps of cloth and was able to add the final touch to the dress that won first place in Gabriel Agreste’s competition (Gabriel Agreste’s!). She loved it then, and she loved it now, with all the danger newly added to the equation.

It started small, with that little, little theft. She needed more material to bring to life that stroke of genius she had just had. But she had already spent all the money she had been given and asking for more was out of discussion – the bakery had not always been that successful… so what’s a teen to do? Plot a distraction and steal that fabric without anyone noticing, of course. She was still proud of that plan she managed to come up with, by the way. So to say that it started small was maybe just a liiiiiittle far-fetched, but, well it was small compared to what followed. 

That happened when she was 14 and she steered far from stealing again for a while. A long while. For a year. The bakery had become more successful, she could now afford more materials to bring those designs of hers out of her sketchbook, but well, some classes wouldn’t have been bad. And everything that was free or cheap she had already attended, not that there were too many, and what was expensive, was so for a reason. She could see famous designers at work, she could learn from them so much, she could receive feedback from them… so she stole again, this time money. The Internet was an amazing place and who knew Google Maps could be so detailed when it came to the layout of certain buildings?! She chose her targets carefully, shops not too luxurious, but not too… poor, as well, so the damage she’d do would be not irreparable and so that she would not get caught by security systems too complicated for her to understand. She did her research. And she did not hurry.

During the day, she blended so well with the masses that he became basically invisible. Just another face, nothing special, nothing unusual; nothing worth remembering. During the night, she became a shadow. She became a master at sneaking out and an actress worthy of an Oscar. But still, her first attempts at sneaking in almost got her caught. Marinette wanted her success more, though, so she just learned from the almost failures and she became better and better. 

That didn’t go unnoticed.

The police were the first to get interested in her activity, of course. But somehow, she managed to leave no trace of herself. Yes, they knew she was a girl because she managed to forget about cameras on her first break in, but they didn’t know what she looked like (thank God there existed masks and hoodies!), and they knew she was quite young, if the petite and thin frame caught on video was anything to go by. But that was all. She never left anything that could lead them to her.

That mask she wore, that sole spot of colour in her whole ensemble gave her the nickname, she became Ladybug thanks to spotted piece adorning her face, but she remained a mystery.

She had almost got all the money she needed to pay for the classes, she was one theft away from being done. But there was a pattern she was following, apparently, and the crime lord of Paris didn’t let that escape his careful examination of the town’s newest criminal, one that didn’t do much, but promised a lot. 

Needless to say, the teen was more than surprised to be met with one of the most infamous criminals on her targeted shop’s rooftop. When Volpina stepped right in front of her, arms crossed over her chest and scowl on her face, and told her Papillon wanted to have a little chat with her, her heart started beating wildly and beads of sweat started to glisten on her brow. 

Papillon was a mean that instilled power in each and every word he said, a man who spread fear with a mere glance, but he kept his tone even, his stance relaxed, and his threats on point.

He had been observing her actions, he had seen her talents and the promise in her, and he had seen she was nowhere near perfect, but he could make her be so. He could make her a full-fledged criminal if she worked for him. But of course, it was entirely her choice. He would not force her to do anything if she didn’t want to, but then again, he was the most wanted criminal in Paris, and she had just seen his lair, so he could not really let her go so easily.

So she became an Akuma, one of the many criminals doing their crimes under Papillon. And even if she hadn’t planned to continue stealing after getting all the money she needed, well, now she had to. Not that she really minded, if she was honest. She had liked to break the rules. She had loved the adrenaline and the suspense. She didn’t like Papillon, not one bit, but she’d have to swallow her resentment for him and keep going, and if she were to admit, working for him did have some perks, after all…

There she was, barely sixteen and almost the youngest Akuma ever. A boy had beaten her to it, by a few months, yes, but still. That was Chat Noir, and it wasn’t really a surprise for anyone when Papillon made the two of them work together. She had to give it to him, the man couldn’t find a better partner for her. Working together, the two of them had got so close to perfection, indeed. 

…She clearly needed more sleep if all she could do was think of her history as Ladybug. And some more after that because not only was she thinking of that, but she was not nostalgic. Because for the first time she could see a glimpse of everything that had happened through another point of view than hers. And something was not alright right there…

Her entire weekend was pretty much destroyed by now. This time, something sure as hell was off, and she wanted to understand what it was. So she surprised herself with another first: she actually tried to see things from another perspective. She went back to every theft, every mission Papillon had ever given them, searched the Internet for every article even remotely related to her and her partner. And then went further. She knew about herself but for the first time it hit her how little she knew about her boss. Of course, she knew the basics. Everyone knew them, Akuma or not. But wouldn’t it have been only natural for one of his to know more about him?

* * *

School wasn’t any better. 

The revelations she had over the weekend made her want to know even more, even though that was something that only made her uneasiness increase. She always had Alya to go to. The girl took seriously her ambition to become a reporter and knew everything there was to know about everything. Especially the most infamous criminals of Paris, and Ladybug and Chat Noir were the two she enjoyed writing about the most. 

Marinette tried being subtle and the first thing that would have given her away would have been the impatience. So she tried not to jump on her best friend the moment she saw her and start asking her questions. Instead, she decided to wait until the girl herself brought up the subject. Which was bound to happen.

And it did. During lunchbreak, when the two of them sat a table accompanied by the rest of “the amazing four”, Adrien and Nino. 

It should have been obvious something was up with Marinette when she greeted the former without blushing or stuttering. Or at least when she didn’t pay attention to what he said during the other breaks. But Alya was too excited about her news to really take it in and Nino was just too oblivious. As for the boy himself, he and Nino weren’t friends for nothing.

When the time finally came and they were gathered together, Alya bounced straight to what excited her: Ladybug and Chat Noir’s newest theft. 

That was all Marinette needed. 

As inconspicuously as possible, she started asking questions herself. 

What they thought about it.

What they thought was behind it. 

What they thought about the previous sightings of the two.

What they thought of them. What they thought of the Akumas. Of Papillon. Of anyone. Who they thought they were. What they thought they wanted.

If they thought there was something bigger behind it all. 

She had basically become Alya. And it could’ve been suspicious. Not that she gave a damn. 

It hadn’t been an undeniable success but it hadn’t been worthless either. They didn’t know so much, especially since Ladybug and Chat Noir were masters at stealing information and that was not public knowledge. No even the police knew. They had become just too good at this to be seen, let alone suspected. But they had some interesting opinions. 

And it came as quite the surprise when it downed on her just how she’d never thought twice about everything she was doing before. 

The classes were kind of a blur. Nothing was quite as important as those thoughts that never left her mind, nothing was as important as the doubt that had become anything but faint. She feigned interest in whatever it was that the teachers were saying, she still wrote down her fair share of notes, but her mind replayed every word Papillon had ever spoken to her, every mission, every break-in. And she was finally making some connections.

* * *

A week later, the night found her perched on a dark rooftop, waiting for her partner. Sure enough, the slight movement somewhere to her left was all she needed to become aware of the masked boy’s presence.

“Hey, Chat…” she began, not bothering to take her eyes away from the full moon adorning the sky.

It was not something unusual for them to just meet and talk in nights like this, when the moon was up and most people asleep. They would enjoy the little break, using it to complain about the life outside the masks, to get some advice from one another or just enjoying each other’s company. It was not unusual for them to carry deep conversations or just tease one another to no end. This time, though, the atmosphere seemed heavier, something seemed to be troubling Ladybug, and the tone of her voice was enough for Chat to be clued in to it. 

“Enchanting as always, my lady.” He responded, taking a sit beside her. “And what do I owe the pleasure of meeting with you this fine evening?”

“Honestly, there’s been something troubling me recently.”

“Oh, you mean bugging you?” his attempt at amusing her was fruitless, instead of a chuckle receiving a deadly look, one that meant his partner had, indeed, some pretty important matters to discuss. 

“OK, OK, I get it, I surrender. Anything you want to share?”

A frown replaced the blank expression from earlier.

When everything started she had every intention to remain cold, to stay alone, to keep it all professional, but Chat was Chat, and his smile was simply infectious, and his puns so bad they were funny, and his whole being was just too much for her to not warm up to him. So she did, and they became friends. More than friends. The bond they shared was kind of special. It went further then breaking the rules together, it went further than the friendly banter and the shameless flirting Chat always threw at her. The trust they had in one another did not know boundaries. 

Chat knew her and she trusted him and she had no intention of keeping her worries from him. 

“Yeah… Chat… what have we been doing?”

Here it was. The question that didn’t let her rest at all that week. That question that shouldn’t even have been considered. They had talked about it, for fuck’s sake. She had been so sure…

Indeed, they had discussed it. They didn’t really mention all the details, but they told each other the basics. She started to steal because she wanted to be able to pursue her passion, and he started his life of crime because it was kind of family business. But the thrill was something that had made them both want to keep going. The thrill and the danger and the knowledge it was, to some extent, an act of rebellion. That and the contract they had both signed, a contract that held different terms and condition for everyone, a contract they had never really talked about, because, for one, she had just assumed he wouldn’t want to disclose personal information just like she wouldn’t… 

Plus… they’d never went too far. They’d never even encountered another human being in their escapades, and they didn’t want to. 

But still… 

“…What do you mean?”

“I mean…” she hesitated, knowing how stupid it all sounded, “I mean, what are we doing? What are we stealing for? What are we even stealing?! Half of our thefts are missions Papillon gives us about which we know almost nothing, and the other half are cover-ups meant to keep the Parisians from worrying about what really matters and the police from looking at us as the main suspects for the actually important thefts. We haven’t got anything for our personal use in ages! And why? Why does Papillon want all that information we get from major companies that don’t seem even remotely related to each other? Why does he need to keep such a tight leash on us and to keep everything he does so secretive?! Why do we keep doing it, Chat? And why does it all feel so fucking wrong now?!”

The boy didn’t answer immediately. He turned his head towards the lights below them, seemingly pondering over his answer. Or maybe over the questions themselves. She didn’t let him find his words, though, choosing to continue with her own speech before he could intervene. 

“After last week’s mission something started to bother me. I don’t really know why, it just kept nagging at me. And I started looking over everything again, Chat. I read every article there is about us, I read everything about our thefts. I even asked some classmates! I can’t believe I’ve been doing this shit for almost two years and it’s only now that I notice how some things just don’t add up.

“Half of what we’ve done goes unnoticed by most people but still has consequences. No surprise when it comes to all that information we’ve been getting Papillon, but I talk about the ideas we’re stealing. I have photos of all the designs he ever made us get him, so I can safely say that nothing was seemingly stolen. There’s no report of a designer claiming their line had appeared under another label and I’ve checked the lines themselves, they’re still under the labels we supposedly stole them from. But there had always been a problem with them. They were spectacular, absolutely extraordinary, but they were always outshined. Always. And I bet that is not just a coincidence, because there is always only one label over them, only one whose lead designer just oh so conveniently thought of using some of the same major elements in those deigns.

“Then… then… that one statue design we stole a while ago, remember that? That destroyed a life. The sculptor wanted to make an exhibition and include that one as the masterpiece, a few weeks later. He was sued for plagiarism. Apparently, someone had had the same idea as his, but was still working on the project. 

“Then there’s the other Akumas. Have you noticed the way Bee talks to him when she has to? Or the Cop? We only heard them a couple of times – which is suspicious in itself – but it sure as hell seems to be a reoccurring thing. I know what my contract meant and I hated it, but… but just what did it meant for the others? For you, too. And…and what we caught him saying last week, before he ended that call? What the hell did he mean by « the Mime is out of the picture »?! It seemed odd, familiar somehow, and I only figured out why when I heard about that scandal with the theatre company, that one best known for its mime spectacles. Maybe it sounds more familiar to you, too if I tell you the manager was a certain businessman we visited a month ago. But then I noticed there’s no Mime anymore in the newspapers and on the TV and Internet… what happened to the famous criminal who managed to fool everyone?! What happened to our fellow Akuma?! I know we barely spend any time there, but he used to be there almost every Friday night when we turned in. Last night he wasn’t. Nor last Friday. 

“I’ve always known I am not one of the good guys, but I’ve never thought that what we were doing was that bad, I’ve never thought of destroying lives, Chat! Lives! I’ve never thought it would get to this!”  
She had been talking fast, as if wanting him to see her point from the start, but her voice cracked at the end. Distress was imprinted on her features and her eyes held something akin to desperation. Something Chat had never thought he would see on Ladybug of all people. 

“Yeah…” he tried. It was a lame attempt at answering and he was very much aware of that. Only… how could he put everything he wanted to say into words? How could he even tell her everything he had been thinking of…? 

“I’ve been… kind of… kind of thinking about it, too… but there are so many ifs, and what ifs, and… and variables… we always knew we were kind of doing his dirty work and he kind of warned us not to ask too many questions or to be nosy, and that’s not really… everything…”

The boy grimaced. That was not everything indeed, and it was clearly not something he could say easily. 

“Chat…?” 

“Fun fact -” he tried smiling again…and failed miserably - “remember that family business I’ve mentioned? Yeah… well I may or may not be related to Papillon…” 

Looks like if she were to be honest, he’d be too.

“Yeah… I’ve kind of always worked for him and I kind of know some more of what’s behind those thefts, but he’s so cold even towards me, he doesn’t tell me much, he only tells me it’s for our family’s benefit and I can see how everything goes better than ever, but that’s not all, that’s not all and just how you said there are some things that just don’t add up! I was just so glad I could finally make him proud of me somehow, that I didn’t even question some of the things he made us do!”

“That… that I did not expect… but still, that makes things even worse! Chat! You can’t do shit like this just because! We’re not heroes, we’re the exact opposite! You don’t play with law just to make someone proud! That’s messed up!” she was fired up, because that was not alright. She chose to be a criminal. She wanted that, albeit it was not really a matter of choice anymore when Papillon entered scene, but Chat… with him it was even worse than in her case apparently.

“He’s my father, LB…”

“I don’t care! I don’t care what or who he is to you! That is not alright! I’ve always hated him, from the moment he took away my choice, but now I absolutely despise him! He may not kill people, but what the hell?! If he destroys lives and, if my assumption is right, gets revenge on people he dislikes by doing so, then he’s just scum!”

“…what do you mean by having your choice taken away?”

“Oh my God, that doesn’t matter, that’s just the tip of the ice-berg! That’s all you’ve got from what I said?! I don’t matter right now! But…” but her demeanour changed all of a sudden. She sat up and started pacing until her thoughts seems to have reached a conclusion, for when she turned to her partner again, her eyes held an intensity that only appeared when a plan was sketched out in her mind and ready to be put in motion. 

“Alright. Good. Now… now, please be honest with me. I trust you, a lot. And I do believe you’ve been sincere all this time, which means you liked some part of this whole ordeal. But have you ever wanted this? Have you ever wanted to be on the wrong side of all of it?”

For a “bad” person, Ladybug had always been awfully considerate of other people’s feelings, something that always made Chat wonder what had actually made her become what she had become. Once again, that genuine worry for him, that kindness almost took him aback and made him soften. When he answered, the tinge of sadness from his words was impossible to hide.

“It never really mattered, LB,”

“Chat.” 

“If I tell my life story, you tell yours, too, m’lady. I don’t care what you say, I know there’s always been something off with you, too. You might have wanted to do this stuff, but that’s not all there is to it, am I wrong?” 

He knew her. He knew her so well…

“Deal.”

The night had never seemed so short.

* * *

As it turned out, Chat had been basically raised to become the perfect vigilante. Since he was six and showed an interest in sports, which may or may not have been just his natural instinct as a child to play and consume energy, his father made him take up multiple… activities.

The man was a well-known businessman, leading a successful company beside his wife, the woman whose dream he wanted to make a reality through that very company. When she died in a tragic accident he was devastated. So he dedicated himself to her dream, wanting to become the best, the lead. He wanted to make everything so she could have been proud, but in the process he became another man. He became colder, he buried himself in his work and he’d never take no for an answer. 

He had to achieve perfection in each and every aspect of his life. And his son was no exception. So the 10 years old boy was given a mission: achieve perfection himself.  
And so he did. To a certain extent.

The boy never protested, never rebelled against his father’s wishes. He did everything he was told to, and did everything so he could make his father proud, for he had always wanted to make his father see him. Not as an employee, not as an asset, not as anything but his son. The one time the boy did something out of his own will he made his father even colder towards him, but he still couldn’t find it in himself to regret disobeying the man and going to a real school for the first time in all his sixteen years of life. Yes, the man became colder, but he had already been so cold it barely made a difference. 

He was always so busy, always so distant. 

So when the teenager found himself in the man’s office during a blackout waiting for the man to return from God knows where and his attention was captured by a painting that seems to have changed its position, he was bound to look further into it. Literally, for as it turned out behind it was a safe his father didn’t close properly. His sheer curiosity was to blame for what he did next. Inside were piles over piles of sheets, containing names, and numbers, and addresses. And information. Information that led him to the discovery of his father’s other major activity: being Papillon. 

Shock came first. Than curiosity, of course. 

He looked into it on the Internet, in newspapers, even managed to find more in his own home. And he raised no suspicions whatsoever. But he had started wondering… wondering if his father wouldn’t appreciate him more for helping him in that other line of work as well. Wondering if he could finally reach the man’s standards. 

He became Chat Noir. 

It hadn’t even been that hard. He had made an outstanding impression through the sheer fact that he had managed to find Papillon’s lair by himself, let alone his knowledge of each and every Akuma. Sure, no one needed to know that one of all those addresses he had first stumbled upon was the very one he needed, and sure no one needed to know the reason why he knew so more about all the Akumas was those very same papers his father had simply forgotten to hide. 

His only demand was to have his identity remain a secret. He wanted to wait for the moment when Chat Noir himself was a reason for the man to be proud, and frankly, he wanted to see if his father treated strangers just the way he treated his own son. 

With quite some reluctance, he had his wish granted, even if just as an experiment, a trial of sorts, until he made himself trustworthy. 

He started low, but didn’t need more than a few months to gain the desired trust. And finally, finally, he was given important missions. And a partner. 

The missions he had to accomplish beside Ladybug where the highlight of any day. Although they were only doing what they had been told to, that still felt somehow as freedom. The chill of night, the lights both under and over them, and his partner herself, that always made his day. Those were things nobody could take away from him, that he enjoyed and treasured and were absolutely his. 

It didn’t matter that he was breaking the law. 

It didn’t matter that he was a criminal and he was helping his father bring that dream to outstanding proportions through all the wrong means, for as he later figured out, that was at least a very important factor that led to his father being who he was. 

It didn’t matter. 

It shouldn’t have… 

It did.

It did and he denied, but he couldn’t anymore. 

Not when his partner in crime had opened her eyes as well and was seeing things just like him. Which meant she was sure that something was wrong and that was not just the part with their stealing stuff. 

He didn’t mind stealing the money and the jewellery. No, most of their “victims” were just as well off as he was and they really didn’t need those money. He minded that he didn’t really know where those money went.

He didn’t mind stealing the designs. They were just clothes after all. He minded that the credit was given to someone who didn’t entirely deserve it.

He didn’t mind stealing the information. It was just numbers and words put on paper. He minded that it was used in all the wrong ways.

He minded that he didn’t know what his father actually wanted beyond what he already had.

He minded that his father didn’t trust him even now.

He minded that a new question haunted him at night, for was it really worth it, his father’s appreciation?

When he finished with his story, one that left his partner completely reconsidering her life choices, if she were to be honest, it was her turn to tell hers. 

The boy had always wanted to know more about her, but she was always reluctant. “Just think about what would happen if the police caught one of us. If we didn’t know too much about each other, we wouldn’t have what to spill while interrogated, we wouldn’t endanger each other,” she would always tell him.

Of course, what she’d never said was that she didn’t want him to think different of her. She was not the smooth Ladybug in real life, as she called it. For starters, she was clumsy, she was kind of air-headed and maybe over-enthusiastic from time to time. The only aspect of Ladybug that remained was her tendency to steal stuff, if the three phones she managed to get from her friends in order to delete embarrassing voicemails or stuff like that where any indication. 

She told him how she started all that charade and how that helped her. She told him why she continued. And then she told him about the contract, a contract that, considering his own willingness, was completely different for the boy. To say Chat was disgusted by his father’s actions would’ve been the understatement of the century. He was absolutely horrified. If that was how his father brought new Akumas into the picture… than that explained the attitude of those Akumas the girl had already mentioned. And that kind of explained why the files of each Akuma was so detailed. 

But still… still… his father had not been surprised that one night when he said he wanted to join the Akumas.

* * *

They didn’t reach any conclusion that night. Nothing was a certainty. But they did make an agreement: they would find out what was really happening. And they would change it. 

As if there hadn’t already been too many unanswered questions, now that they started to see things from other perspectives, there were even more. 

They had, at least, discussed the next course of action. Chat was to take advantage of his connection with Papillon and try to get more information about him and his…”activities”, while Ladybug was to have a nice little chat with some fellow Akumas. Especially the younger ones, those like Queen Bee, and Timebreaker and the Gamer and Wifi, who were kind of new and were just as shrouded in mystery as the two of them were. 

They wouldn’t hurry, they’d be careful and subtle and wouldn’t let themselves get distracted. They’d still do what Papillon asked them, they’d still behave normally, but they’d keep meeting like that, just the two of them, without anyone’s knowledge, to share with one another their newest discoveries. 

They had done something, after all. 

And if they also figured out who might be under the masks, then they left that unsaid, something to be dealt with first thing in the morning, Monday.

* * *

Who knew time would pass faster if you dreaded a certain moment?

Who fucking knew?!

Marinette had had a fairly normal weekend. From anyone’s point of view beside hers. Because what it really was, was a weekend from hell. 

The Sunday rush was still the Sunday rush, her parents still needed the help, her homework still needed to be done, her cat still needed to be taken care of, but her mind had been anywhere but at those things, drifting over possible plans and “escape routes”, brainstorming new ideas and kind of still taking in all Chat had told her. 

Once the morning passed it became even worse. If she had been able to keep all thought of Chat Noir and his identity at bay until most of the work was done, well, that was in the past. All she could think about was him and his moron of a father and the fact that she was 90% sure he was her crush – not that she would ever admit he would’ve still been considered as her crush if she was mistaken about his identity. Everything fit together too well to be just a coincidence, but at the same time everything was just a little too perfect to be true. She couldn’t wait to go to school, and she hoped the moment never came at the same time. 

But there she was, in front of the school, earlier than she’d ever been, pacing like a madman and probably making all kinds of crazy faces. A chuckle, though, was all it took for her to stop dead in her tracks.

“Sooo... you kind of figured it out, too, then?” came his voice from somewhere behind her. It was his voice and holy shit how had she not noticed that before?! 

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself, mustering all that courage she was so proud of as Ladybug, and finally turning around, Marinette came face to face with one slightly blushing Adrien Agreste. 

He seemed... at ease. Relaxed. And there was a gleam in his eyes she’d only ever seen in Chat’s. And that grin... that grin could rival the cat themed boy’s anytime. 

His demeanour made her own uneasiness subside considerably and, grinning herself, Ladybug replaced Marinette for the first time without a mask. 

“You’d say we were smarter than that, wouldn’t you, chaton?”

“I don’t know about you m’lady, but I am purrfectly convinced that discussion was the smartest thing we’ve ever done,” he said, taking a few more confident steps toward her and slightly leaning in, hands clasped loosely behind his back. 

“If I ever thought you were cool as Adrien, that pun just ruined the illusion.” She tried supressing the smile on her face but it was clearly in vain, since that very smile was present in her eyes as well; not that she minded, of course.

“My day just gets better and better! First I get to see you, now you tell me you think I’m cool, must be that your luck is finally rubbing off on me, after all.”

Adrien Agreste, her sweet, kind, intelligent crush, who was also Chat Noir, her pun-loving, underappreciated, clever partner and, just maybe, other crush, was telling her she’d made his day just by existing... among other things!

But that... that was something Chat had always done... but not Adrien... Adrien who had never seen her as anything more than a friend...

Huh... who knew that was how one can prevent combusting from sheer joy? Who knew that just waking up would do the trick...

With a sigh, Ladybug returned to her more common seriousness.

“Luck or no luck, we still need to get things done... got anything over the weekend?”

“Not really. He’s been as busy as ever, no chance to talk to him, let alone getting him out of the office. But he’s a got a business trip coming up. I’m pawsitive that’s the perfect time to do some investigation. You?”

“I like your idea, but no, I don’t have anything either. My best shot is when we next see him. There’s got to be someone there at the time and I guess I’ll just corner them. Which reminds me... we need to 

get started on the new mission.”

“Let’s meet in the library at lunch and get started on the research.”

“Pound it?” came her only answer. She raised her fist and smiled confidently. 

They didn’t finish any mission, but it still felt like they were done with some part of one at least.

“Pound it.”

Apparently, they both agreed on that.

* * *

After four days of almost continuous watch, the two masked teens admitted with half the calm and twice the fierceness from before that they’d underestimated their target. 

Sure, it wasn’t hard at all to get some research done on the man. Not when he was one of the most appreciated figures in the whole city and he even had his own Wikipedia page. It wasn’t hard to spy on him, not when there were so many excuses to use to miss a few classes, not when they could help each other with said excuses and not when they could split the time spent watching between them.  
Hard, as it turned out, was to finally come up with a good plan. 

Ladybug did not lack creative ideas, Chat Noir did not lack the equipment they might’ve needed for whatever plan, but their target seemed to lack, however, any sense of organization or personal security. 

And that could only mean one thing: that he was the complete opposite.

That they expected. Only it wasn’t like that. 

Mister Fu actually was the way he seemed to be. 

Mister Fu, Inspecteur Général, head of national security, the seventy or so old man who seemed to never get close to retirement was the same man who never was in the same place at the same time in two different days, the same man who never seemed to put away the papers from his desk, get his laptop to a safe place or even get himself to safety.  
Mister Fu was the man who went to his office when he wanted every day, took care of some important looking papers, typed on his laptop for an hour or so, let most of his stuff exactly where he’d found them and left. Home, he wasn’t any better. If at the office there was, at least, the pretence of security, what with that one (one) camera in a room of one of the safest buildings in Paris, at home he seemed to have no security system whatsoever. Nothing. Of course, if his dog didn’t count.

He didn’t even stay home too much. 

If he regularly did what Ladybug and Chat Noir saw him doing those four days they tried to keep him under close watch, then the old man was more active than most teenagers with all his walking (especially during the night), visiting the police stations scattered across Paris and just drinking a lot of tea. A lot of tea.

That part with his being always out was supposed to make their life easy. They should’ve had the time to search his house. Especially since he was so fond of the night-time and wanted to spend some hours outside every night. But it didn’t. 

At first it was their not knowing what to expect from his home security system. They had watched, they had used their more than performant equipment to identify any kind of threats, they used every trick in the book, but there was nothing. So they went further. While one of them would follow the man around, the other would try to sneak in and find what Papillon had asked them to: the Akuma Case. 

In the office, nothing. 

The papers scattered across his desk, yes, all those seemed important, but nothing related to Papillon or his minions. The drawers in there were all stuffed, but none of the manila folders was labelled as Akuma or Papillon or anything like that. They even searched the contents, just to be on the safe side, but still no progress. As for the laptop, one call to Lady Wifi and it was theirs to operate. But it was completely useless. In his house, even less. Rooms after rooms decorated in Chinese style, rooms after rooms of nothing to go by. 

There was something they were missing. Something obvious they should have seen. Something that should’ve done the trick. But the days passed and they made no progress.

But Papillon was starting to lose his patience.

Even when he first gave them the mission he seemed more… urgent. Even more… scary than usually, more predatory. But once a week was gone and they went to him to give the weekly report, he lost all semblance of understanding when he was told they had not yet been able to identify the wanted information. 

Slowly rising from his seat behind his usually tidy desk, Papillon’s frown deepened and his already stormy eyes became a veritable hurricane. His voice was beyond menacing when he spoke. 

“You will get me that folder by the middle of next week, understood?!”

“We need time, sir. If we hurry…” tried Chat, his voice even and calm, but his attempt at making him understand only made things worse.

“I don’t care what you do-” Papillon interrupted the boy, getting closer and closer to the two- “I don’t care how you do it, but I will be in possession of that case by Wednesday, have I made myself understood?!”

“Sir, we want leave nothing that could lead them to us so we need to be…” continued the girl. 

“Listen here, pest. One of you has spilled some valuable information to the police. I don’t know who had the nerve and frankly I don’t care. If you don’t bring me the folder with this case I will assume it was you who spoke and you won’t like the consequences. If you don’t want your partner here to get a new bug to work with, you better close your mouth and do what I tell you. I ask one last time, have I made myself understood?!”

Ladybug didn’t let herself show any sign of fear or intimidation, so she just blinked, keeping her eyes closed for a moment longer than needed and then, taking a deep breath, she answered him as if 

nothing had happened.

“Yes, sir.”

“Out,” he dismissed them, returning to his seat, poised as always. 

Once the door closed behind them, the two looked at one another, a silent conversation going on between them. With a nod, they split ways. 

The outburst of their boss was nothing unusual, neither for Ladybug, nor for Chat, they didn’t let that affect them, but that didn’t make them any less attentive to his words, and what he said about someone having betrayed him, that was quite some interesting news, news worth keeping in mind. They still had something to do, though, and as Chat went home to try doing some investigation before his father left for his business trip, Ladybug looked for some familiar faces who wouldn’t mind some innocent questions.

* * *

Ladybug’s cunning mind never ceased to amaze Chat. Her plans never failed, her ideas were all spot on and her ability to make one talk was, apparently, just as perfect, too. 

When they met on their usual dark rooftop a few hours later and she told him everything she had been able to get from Lady Wifi, Queen Bee, Timebreaker, Fragrance and The Gamer he was left wondering just how naïve he could be.  
If they were right, there was something most of Akumas had in common: they had had a goal, Papillon had taken notice of their skills and they were threatened into becoming one of his. 

The five fellow criminals admitted, some more reluctantly than the others, that they had stories similar to Ladybug’s. More than that, some of them didn’t even want to be just that, criminals, but Papillon had them all in his clutches. No move of theirs could escape him and no disobedience could ever be tolerated.  
Except one had apparently been able to get to him. Someone had talked and neither Ladybug, nor Chat Noir knew just how exactly to feel about that. One thing, though, they knew for sure: there was more pressure than ever on their shoulders because they knew they were doing both the right and the wrong thing at once.

* * *

Fu was walking the streets of Paris, head down, hands clasped back, seemingly deep in thought; Ladybug was closely watching him from the safety of the rooftops, Chat’s voice coming from time to time from her earpiece. It was her turn to stalk the old man while Chat investigated for a second time the house. This time they had a lead, at least… or more like... a hunch. 

They had seen Fu’s house, inspected it thoroughly and nothing seemed out of place. Only, while Marinette stood at home going over it all again the night before, something clicked in her mind.  
Her Chinese heritage proved useful for once. And so did her mother’s lessons on feng shui. They seemed utterly useless at the time, but now, when she saw all the rules applied in the man’s house, it helped her see the only thing out of place. 

Everything was where it was supposed to be. Except for a gramophone.

And Chat was to inspect it that very night. 

Nothing went wrong with his sneaking in, but if his constant “are you sure that was the item” or “nothing else seemed out of place” questions were anything to go by, than he didn’t really have any success. That is, until his screech of “holy shit” rang in her ear so loud it almost deafened her. 

“Quiet, Chat!” she hissed, as quietly as possible, but grinning all the same. 

“Holy fucking shit you were right!” came his response, a subdued enthusiasm obvious in it. “The mechanism is so well hidden, oh my God! It’s a work of art in itself!”

“Stop with the gushing, go make your magic.” 

That is exactly what the boy had in plan, indeed, his impressive skills when it came to understanding and using anything that involved a mechanism being once again well put to use.  
“So what do we have here… this seems to be…”

Ladybug didn’t really bother trying to comprehend his own kind of Chinese past that point, and not because she dismissed his work. No, but something had caught her eye and she had a feeling it was important…

She tried penetrating the dark shadows of night, looking for the source of that flash of light. 

It was nothing too obvious, barely visible from where she was crouched, but there had been a glimmer nonetheless, and it was nothing like a torch or a candle or the screen of a phone. 

A feminine figure emerged from the shadow, running away from it at top speed, almost tripping over in the process. But she was not alone. A bulky guy followed suit, catching up in no time and slamming the girl to a wall holding a knife to her throat. 

The whole scene was happening a street away from where Fu was, but a street was enough to lose sight of him and endanger the whole mission. But she had her priorities right, she knew that, and the girl wasted no more than ten seconds on taking in the scene and deciding what to do before she stood up and went straight to the two figures. Her parkour was flawless and the two years of constant practice made her silent as well. Not to mention those two years also meant her advancing to a black belt. With a flick of the wrist she had her ever-present yoyo flying and hitting the knife away from the girl’s neck. 

Surprise flashed on both faces, on the girl’s face tears reflecting the barely existing light. At the sight of the intruder, the man had the audacity to relax.

Ladybug remained calm, a hint of disgust in her expression.

“You had me scared there, girlie. You Ladybug, ain’t yea?” 

“Why don’t you take on someone your size, huh?”

“Ladybug? What’s going on there?” came Chat’s surprised voice, but the masked girl chose to ignore it, turning off the device altogether 

The man looked her over and gave a snort. 

“And you are my size, or what? Even this one here’s taller than you.” continued the guy, not bothering to hide his smirk, and, as if to emphasize his words as well as his power, he gave a slight push, earning a whimper from the already scared girl in his hold. 

“You’d make a good Sherlock, you know? A good prisoner, too. But I’d rather go with the second one.” 

“You think you’re smart? Just wait until I’m done with you two.” 

All the amusement on his face was now gone, and gone seemed to be his patience, too. 

_Hot tempered. Good to know_ , thought Ladybug idly before hitting once again with her yoyo. 

The man had made the mistake of underestimating her, he had turned his gaze away from the masked girl and started to go for a punch, most probably wanting to knock out his victim before getting rid of the one who had so daringly made fun of him. _As if!_

The yoyo struck, capturing the man’s arm and pulling him towards its holder. Caught off guard, he stumbled and lost his menacing grip on the poor girl, giving her the chance she needed to make her escape. Stumbling free, she managed to run away just before he could grab her once again.

“Did you really think I’d stand by and watch?” she asked matter-of-factly, as if the whole ordeal was so insignificant to her she could chastise him for wasting her time. 

“You…” he growled. “Who do you fucking think you are?!”

He caught the string of the yoyo in his free hand and tugged it away from the girl’s grip, almost making her stumble. She had made a mistake there, she hadn’t been fast enough to get it back and she had lost it. But it was not the time to panic, so she just crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip.

“I could ask you the same question. That girl had no chance in hell to defend herself.”

“That was the whole fucking idea! You’re Ladybug, what the fuck are you doing getting all righteous and shit?!”

“First off, I’m not one of yours. Secondly, I don’t give you of all people explanations. And thirdly, you might want to revise your moral code.”

“Look at her how she thinks she’s better than me –” he said mockingly, but his façade wore off quickly, leaving behind the angry face of a monster –“You asked for it.”

His temper did get to him, in the end, for in his blind fury he made the mistake of letting go of the yoyo. 

Being so much smaller than him, Ladybug was much more agile and flexible, too. The tiny object didn’t even touch the ground when Ladybug jumped towards it, easily dodging the man’s attack, and grabbing her weapon, she didn’t hesitate on using it again.

Her aim was perfect, she had been practicing for years and years, even before becoming Ladybug. Her yoyo was nothing but an extension of her arm. And if she wanted the man to feel exactly like the girl he’d had in his grip, then that she’d have. The string coiled around his neck tight enough to make him stumble and struggle to breathe, but not to make it impossible for him to tug it away with a little force put into it. That little wrong move he made was enough for her to bring him down on the cold concrete, and not wasting a second, she punched him where she knew it hurt the most. A quick look around revealed nothing that could help her immobilize him, so, taking quite the risk, she unzipped her hoodie and took of the shirt she was wearing, thanking whatever deity up there who loved her that she had been wearing an undershirt, too. Ripping apart the shirt, she managed to bind the man tightly by his hands and his feet, even remaining with enough cloth to gag him. 

Punching him good just to make sure he was in no shape to struggle against her improvised ties, she took out her phone and called the police, saying nothing beyond the fact that there was a man waiting to go to rot in jail for attempting rape and the street where he was. 

She took her time putting her hoodie back, knowing that there was no way the police could get there in less than five minutes considering location of the closest police department and ensuring the man stayed where he was. 

The whole ordeal took less than ten minutes, but it was already too late for her to find the girl again and maybe bring her home safely, and apparently, it had been enough for Fu to get to that street, too. 

Locking eyes with the man for a second, she decided he could take care of the man himself if needed, and took off, getting lost in the shadows.

Once in a safe place, she turned on her communicator once again, being met with some mumble that kind of sounded like Chat cussing the hell out of him. It didn’t take him longer than two seconds to realise he could talk to her again.

“Ladybug!” he almost shouted, “What the hell! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry. There was an inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience?! That was you provoking someone! What the fuck happened?! If you didn’t turn on your communicator in the next five minutes I would’ve left everything right fucking here and come for you!”

“You don’t even know where I am.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t come immediately after you turned that shit off! Now stop avoiding my question and answer it, for fuck’s sake. What the hell happened?!”

“Some scum had a knife at a girl’s throat. And he had nothing good in mind, believe me. So it was me watching whatever would’ve gone down or giving him a lesson.”

He took a moment before answering. 

“Well… shit. That was not much of a choice…” 

“Honestly, I’m glad we’re on the same page,” she breathed, relief seeping through her words.

“What… what do you mean?”

“Are we really that bad?” she chose to ask instead.

“Huh?”

“Of course we are, oh my God, what’s wrong with me?!” the words where so quietly said she was fairly sure Chat hadn’t really understood anything. She sat down and took a deep breath, refocusing. 

“Doesn’t matter. It’s stupid, I’ll tell you later. How are things going on your side?”

“…I’m almost done here,” he hesitated. “First things first, though, are you alright?”

“Yeah… yeah, not a scrap. Now go on.” 

He sighed, relieved, and letting go for the moment of those hurried mumbles from before, he continued.

“I was pretty stressed out here not knowing what was going on so I was not giving my absolute best, but still I think I’ve almost got this.”

“Fair warning, I don’t know where Fu is anymore.”

“Guess it’s alright. Where are you, right now?”

“Still in Rue Scheffere”

“It would take him at least twenty minutes to get back here from there. You said he was there when you left, right?”

“Yeah…” she answered with half a mouth, sounding apologetic. 

“No problem, he can’t know why you were there. And that only helps at the moment, because if he saw everything, then he’d stay there to make sure police comes, right?”

“I guess…”

“So make your way here and help me. By the time you’re here, I’ll probably have it opened for us to take a good look inside.”

* * *

He was done by the time she arrived, already having taken the documents and covered his tracks.

The tension was unbearable, both of them knowing they had upon them one of the most important files the police were working on. On top of that, Papillon had got angry just hearing they could not get it fast enough, so they could only imagine what he’d do knowing they had it and were not bringing it straight to him.

Nothing beyond the folder in Chat’s hands was more important. Every thought related to the fight Ladybug had just come from left both their minds, leaving room for the matter at hand. 

To make sure no one could see or hear them doing what they planned to do, Marinette made him come to her home, and once seated on her bed, the two could finally take a good look at the stuffed folder still in Chat’s hands. 

“So…” Adrien tried.

“So… let’s see how much we’ve missed…”

He needed no other encouragement, so, taking a breath, he put the folder between them and opened it. They didn’t need to look much for the one file they needed; it was the first, right on top of all the others. The messy writing could be barely read, but it was not impossible and with every word they read about the lesser known missions they’d had, with every little detail about Papillon and the Akumas and even them, with every little thing it became clearer and clearer for them who had betrayed the man.

But there were more confessions. There, in the anonymous letter put on display, were the words telling the two how exactly a girl with a knack of hacking was discovered by a man with a knack of persuading and how, with a well-aimed threat and a promise of secrecy and safety, she became one of his, helping him and the other Akumas whenever it was needed, her abilities well put to use. 

There was no name. Nowhere. Not on the letter, not in the reports that followed. But there was only one Akuma who could have had access to such information, there was only one Akuma who knew so much about the duo and their missions. And there was, coincidentally, one girl they both knew who shared some interesting things with that one, especially the handwriting. 

And both teens were aware Papillon would put two and two together just as well once he saw everything, too. 

And Lady Wifi wasn’t going to like the consequences.

* * *

Adrien and Marinette sat in silence once they finished reading everything, still staring at the files in their hands with empty eyes, a tell-tale frown on both their faces.

“We have two more days until he expects us to bring this to him,” she started. 

“We do.”

“How do we make the most of them?”

“Good question.”

“We need to get our priorities straight first.” 

That was something they could both agree on, for sure. But things were never simple…

“We can’t give it to him as it is.”

“Nope. Nothing good can come from this… But we still need to give him something.”

“So what do we do, we just rewrite everything?”

“Guess that’d work, at least for some time. Even if it doesn’t last it would still buy us some time, don’t you think?”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. But we need to talk to Wifi, too.”

“As her, or as Alya?”

“Well, approaching her as Lady Wifi might give her a sense of security. I mean, maybe that would make her more confident...? As Alya she might feel cornered. Plus, she can’t really trust us, can she?” Marinette finished with a humourless laugh. 

“No, at least not in the beginning.” 

“So how do we make her trust us?”

Adrien didn’t respond immediately, resting his eyes once again on the letter he had been holding, on the messy handwriting and the impossibly to read phrases crossed out because they could probably reveal too much.

“We’re honest.”

“Even so, we can’t tell her everything…”

“Why not? She’s bound to become suspicious when the two most valuable Akumas Papillon has working for him come to her to help her bring him down. Alya is too smart to not ask questions. She’s too smart to not see some connections and she could help us find out a lot more.” 

Marinette hesitated. 

“I know.”

She was not looking at him and that was something that didn’t escape the boy. His gaze was soft and his voice even softer when he spoke again.

“But there’s a ‘but’ there, bugaboo, I feel it.”

“Yeah but it’s stupid, so yeah, we have to tell her. Do we wait till tomorrow, or…”

“You said something like this earlier, too. Mari, what’s up? There something bothering you. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” she smiled without it reaching her eyes. She took a deep breath and mustered her courage. 

She knew she could tell Adrien anything. They had been best friends since becoming partners and even though it had not been long since they’d found out who each other was, the bond between them was already stronger. Crush on him or not, they were still best friends and they already knew each other’s darkest secrets, so what was one more thing shared between them?

“I’m ashamed, ok? I love being Ladybug, but I’ve started to hate what she does. I hate it more and more, with every new thing I read or hear or say about her, with every stunt Papillon makes us pull. And it’s stupid, because I started it myself and I kind of wanted what Papillon offered, too. It was so liberating for a while, breaking the rules and doing all that shit, and what we were doing didn’t seem so bad until it was. And there came that guy tonight and he was so sure I’d be on his side! He was going to fucking destroy a life and he fucking thought I’d be on board with it because I’m Ladybug, and then I remembered I helped with destroying lives, too. And now I just want to, I don’t know, redeem Ladybug or something, and I just don’t want to make Marinette and Ladybug one person, especially not in front of Alya. I don’t want her to see me like that…”

When she looked at him again her eyes were not the blue of a clear sky that Adrien knew and loved, but that of blue sky shadowed by an oncoming storm. There was deep sadness inside them and there was nothing but honesty on her face. 

“I know how you feel –” he started – “believe me, I understand. After all I helped you with all of that and you’re not the only one who started doing it because she wanted do, remember? At least you needed what you stole and that actually helped you. I know what it’s like to feel guilty. I do, too, believe me. I do. But Mari, you’re nothing like that guy. He was doing that deliberately, he knew exactly what he was doing and how the girl would feel, but you were simply following orders, you didn’t even know the full extent of what you were doing. Neither of us did.”

His words were confident, no sugar-coating, no dishonesty, nothing. That was exactly what he was thinking and, somehow, that made Marinette see things differently, even if just a little bit so. She was not convinced yet, however. She still had her doubts.

“We should’ve thought about it earlier, though. We shouldn’t have been so naïve, we shouldn’t have been so… so…”

“But we aren’t anymore. And we are questioning it now,” he interrupted. “It’s not too late, Mari. Come on, cheer up! We’ll show them we didn’t want that, you have already taught that guy a lesson tonight, didn’t you? It’s already started!”

His smile was infectious, but instead of smiling herself, she snorted. 

“Yeah, I did… and that was fucking awesome! You should’ve seen his face when he realized I was there to help the girl and not him! Beating him was priceless! That guy got what he deserved! It felt…” her voice faltered and her eyes found him with a newly found intensity shining in them, but it didn’t take her more than a moment to break into a smile so, so bright.

“It felt better than anything I’ve ever done as Ladybug, Adrien. It was still exhilarating and liberating and the adrenaline was pulsing through my veins and there was that danger that just makes your blood rush and all, but it was so much more!”

“You make me envious, m’lady,” he added with a smirk, slightly leaning towards her. “You know what? You make me so envious I kind of come up with all kinds of ideas right now. Like doing just that for instance. And doing exactly what you’ve just said in the process, redeeming ourselves. We don’t even need to have everyone know about it, but what if we started doing more, what if we became the ones people like that girl need? Whatcha say, m’lady?”

“I think your ideas are spots on,” she answered him with a slight giggle, but her mood didn’t stay so bright for too long. 

“We still have this to work out, though…” she added.

“You know, maybe we can skip that little bit concerning our identities if you’re not comfortable with it.”

“I don’t know. It’s like you said, she’s too smart to not see how the thinks just add up… I don’t know, but with or without revealing our identities we need to get her to talk as soon as possible. You’re up for a meeting with a certain hacker?”

“Whenever you want m’lady.”

A call was all it took. It didn’t matter it was the middle of the night, all of them new that when their ‘work’ phones rang, they had to answer. The simple “your help is needed”, the name of a secluded street and a meeting was set in thirty minutes.

Once again clad in their masks with hoodies to shadow their faces, Ladybug and Chat Noir were patiently waiting for the dark-skinned girl to show up, the moment she did neither of them bothering with pleasantries. 

“What’s the matter, guys?”

“Did Papillon tell you about the last mission he gave us?” asked Ladybug sitting up from the spot where she had been staying. 

“Not really. He only said it’s something related to the police and that you might need my help with some security systems. So here I am again.”

The two partners briefly looked at each other, and the former almost grimaced before he spoke. 

“Yeah...-” he hesitated- “about that… we’ve kind of found what we were looking for.”

“Um… alright…?” she scowled. She feigned confusion, but the bead of sweat forming on her brow betrayed her. “But you said you still needed me? So…”

“It’s more like the other way round, actually,” added the boy. This time the confusion on Alya’s face was nothing but the pure reflection of what she was really feeling. 

It was time for Ladybug to bring some light upon the whole situation. 

“That was Papillon’s mission, you know? Finding the case of the Akumas and his and ours and all that. He, somehow, found out someone was not really ‘his’ after all. And we managed to find it. Tonight, actually. But we didn’t bring it to him immediately; we read it first.”

“So now what? You could’ve called him instead of me, yet here I am. What is it that you want?”

Her expression was pure defiance and Marinette felt a swell of pride for her best friend. That was the Alya she knew. That was the Alya who said that all it would take for evil to triumph would be good people doing nothing, when she first heard about Ladybug and Chat Noir and started investigating on them. 

That was the friend she was so afraid of disappointing and to whom she did exactly that. 

But know it was her time to show the hacker she could be better herself. 

“We want to bring Papillon down.”

“We were naïve. More than that, we were stupid. We had our reasons, but they are not any justification for what we did. We want to… kind of… fix what we’ve done,” Chat continued his partner’s thought, never taking his gaze away from the girl’s wide eyes. There was, indeed, surprise in them, but not without a hint of scepticism and suspicion. 

“You are his most trusted guys, I think, you where the fucking last people I expected to hear that from! I hope you don’t expect me to trust you just like that when so much is on the line!”

“Nope. This is why we came straight to you. What do you say about helping us rewrite everything that might turn out troublesome? That would be the beginning…”

Chat knew what was coming just by the way she gulped before finishing what she had to say. His smile was faint but encouraging when he threw it at her, and his eyes spoke volumes. “Whatever you do, I’ll be by your side,” he seemed to say, and somehow, Marinette had no doubt that was exactly what he would’ve said.

“And of course, you can demand us showing you who we are at any moment. That would be only fair, I guess, and, yeah, you might trust us more if you knew… or you could not, that might actually destroy everything, I’m not really sure, but that was worth a try. So yeah we kindoffiguredwhoyouarebythehandwriting and I’ll just, yeah, stop,” she blurted out. 

That was something so Marinette-like it hurt and if she was anything like how red she felt, well, Alya might as well have been shown who Ladybug was, indeed. 

“You tell me you not only figured out who I am, but you’d be willing to show me who you are?! That might be your demise, you know that, right? I might just go with you and help you and all and then go straight to the police.” 

“We know that-” said Chat with a kind smile- “we know that, but we are willing to take that risk. And we trust you. We just want to make you trust us, too.”

“You know who I am. As you said, it would be only fair.”

“Yeah, it would be, so we’re going?” asked Ladybug more confident. “The files are at my home and I bet you’ll figure everything halfway there, anyway.”

“Hmm, we’ll see. Lead the way.”

* * *

Alya had been quiet all the way. She didn’t speak halfway to Marinette’s house, didn’t utter a single a word once on her friend’s balcony and didn’t say a thing now, seated on the chase, looking straight at the two. 

The tension was so thick it could’ve been cut with a knife. 

“Just say something, Alya, please! I know, I’m sorry, I really am! But this is it, alright? This is me and I know it’d disappointing and I’m sorry! You can never talk to me after this, but please just help us with this shit, or let us help you, it doesn’t matter!” started Marinette, giving in to the anxiety.

Alya opened her mouth, but closed it after a moment without saying anything, on her face a battle between different expressions. When she finally spoke, her frown made some of them present at once. 

“I’m not disappointed. I’m just… surprised, I guess. Well, I mean, it makes sense that you figured me out because of my handwriting, and it makes sense that you didn’t go straight to Papillon once you knew, but still, you’re Ladybug, and I just can’t put you two together yet. And don’t even get me started on Chat Noir here! I wouldn’t have pegged sunshine boy as the criminal type in a thousand years!” she concluded with a snort. "And don't you think I won't want the whole story!"

To say the two were relieved would’ve been an understatement. Marinette let out a deep breath and the smile she broke into became absolutely infectious. 

“Wouldn't have dreamed of it. But anyway, we should get to work, shouldn’t we?” continued the girl, smiling herself.

* * *

It took them almost all night to get their stories straight first. There were quite a lot of things Alya had to know before anything else and then there were the little details they had to put in order so that Papillon couldn’t suspect a thing. Only then did they start rewriting everything. 

At school, the next day, they were nothing but zombies, but after a good nap they were once again ready to continue the work, to make the plan that would either make everything right, or make their lives a living hell. 

And when the deadline finally came, the three were ready to face it with their heads held high. 

Taking a deep breath, Ladybug and Chat Noir entered the room where Papillon was waiting for them in front of his desk. The sheer fact that he was not seated made the alarms go off in both their heads, but their faces remained as neutral as ever, a hint of confidence even shining through.

The man though, there was fury in his posture, although he was as stiff as ever. He held his hands behind him and the head as high as always. 

“We got it,” said the girl, taking some steps forward in order to put the files on the desk. She didn’t linger beside the man even for a moment. 

“Good to know you haven’t started neglecting your job, what with your newest activities, I wouldn’t have been surprised.” Papillon's tone was mocking. And cold. He brought his hands in front of him, throwing a newspaper on the desk, the big, bold letters on the front page catching the attention of both partners immediately. 

“How come you still grace us with your presence, Ladybug? No one to save tonight?” he continued, still not making any unnecessary move. 

“« Paris’ newest vigilante, the redeemed villain » what an interesting title, don’t you thing. Quite informant, these newspapers, after all. And so many details, oh my! Turns out Paris’ best known thief does have a face! And look at her, she wants to redeem herself, how impressive. And look at it! There are some chances she might not be that bad! After all, even Inspecteur Général Fu had seen her saving that poor, poor girl and catching the bad guy. Interesting, indeed.”

Getting too confident was always risky. Regardless of the circumstances.

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Nothing more, nothing less. The same goes for Fu,” Ladybug answered. There had been no question spoken, but it had been there, between the words. 

“I hope, Ladybug, that you understand how you put everything at risk by letting yourself be seen. Especially by your target.”

“It was a risk I was willing to take, sir.”

“And why, if I may ask? Had you suddenly turned into a hero? Had you forgotten who you were? Newsflash, Ladybug. That guy was one of yours, like it or not. Don’t betray yours and you won’t suffer the consequences.”

“He was not one of mine. He was not an Akuma, he was out of his mind,” she retorted, trying to keep her composure, to not give in to his almost taunting words. 

“What if he were though? What if that were an Akuma. Would you have done the same thing?”

There came no answer, just a fierce glare, but Papillon was not a stupid man; he had understood enough.

“I thought so.” He said, turning his back to them and heading for his seat. Still not facing them, he continued, “I don’t care what your motives are, I don’t care if you’re the victim yourself; put me at risk one more time and you’ll regret it. Both of you. Dismissed.”

That didn’t go exactly as planned, but it hadn’t really messed with their plans. They had to be just a little bit more careful, not that that wouldn’t have been welcome, anyway.

Alya was waiting for them outside the door, ready to start phase one of their plan: weakening Papillon.

They had discussed countless options. Countless scenarios. But all of them ended with the two girls in prison at best. They could denounce him, they could literally steal every paper he had, they could confront him face to face, but all those plans could backfire. 

They had no chance to bring him down for good immediately, but they could start by weakening him. And how could they do that better if not by bringing more of the Akumas on their side?

Monsieur Agreste knew what kind of people to use, when and where to find them. 

Some of his Akumas were only a one-time thing, a useful asset for a certain mission. Most of them were hackers, none as good as Alya r the Gamer, yes, but better in certain areas, and they just happened to be in need of something at the moment. Like Relfekta, for instance, if the girl had been indeed sincere when she assisted Alya in one of her missions. She was a master in photo-shop. The best out there. Papillon just happened to need someone to modify some phots that could stand as evidence against him, and the girl just happened to need money: some fight with her family, some misunderstanding, left her without the means she needed to pursue her passion. 

And then there were people like Alya herself, just too valuable.

Or like Chat, they could or could not be just the thing he needed, but there wasn’t really anything for him to lose. 

The ones the three needed to focus on were the ones like Alya, but in order to do that, in order to convince them to join their cause; but in order to do that, they needed to figure out who they were first. And for that they’d take advantage of Papillon’s precautions as much as possible. He had wanted them to be able to contact whoever they’d need in one of their more difficult mission. And wouldn’t they do just that?

* * *

In order to be more efficient, they decided to split. Chat and Ladybug were to start contacting one by one the ones the others in their contacts, while Alya was to talk to the ones already in Papillon’s building. Considering it was not the official meeting night, there weren’t too many….

Queen Bee was the first on their list. She was always kind of grumpy, she dared talk back to Papillon, she never really interacted with anyone. A quick call , a set meeting, and LB left to meet with the first potential ally, while Alya left scouting for others and Chat to meet with Volpina, the next strangest Akuma beside Queen Bee.

No one never knew what to expect from the girl, not even Papillon himself. She was annoyed with everyone at a moment and the most talkative person ever the next, she was cold and grumpy one day and warm and sweet the second. That could only mean one thing, right? That she was like the three of them had been, or at least like Ladybug, uncertain. 

_Right_?

* * *

Queen Bee hadn’t chosen such a name for herself for nothing. 

She was hot tempered, she was stubborn and quite selfish, but she didn’t lose herself under pressure, she was quite agile and flexible and she had quite the sharp mind; surprisingly, even sharper than her tongue.

“It’s almost midnight. On a Wednesday. Why the fuck do you need me right now?!” she said instead of greeting. 

Nothing unusual. 

“Why, hello to you, too, Queenie!” smiled Ladybug so sickeningly sweet just so that she could annoy her a little bit more. 

“If you’re going to question me on stupid things like last time, you might as well just go fuck off.”

“You hate Papillon.”

“Give the girl a prize!”

“You told me, and I quote…

“No need, LB. He’s a jerk and an ass and a prick and whatever you want to call him. I told it to you, I told it to him, you can go shout it to the entire world , but if you go to him by any chance tell him I told him every curse that comes to your mind, show him the middle finger and if you’re feeling brave maybe just give him a little slap from me.”

“And you tell him all this things to his face, don’t you?” 

“Always have, always will. Now, if we’re finished, can I return to my beauty sleep?!”

“Not just yet, nope. What I mean to ask you, is why you aren’t even remotely afraid of him?!”

“Look Ladybug, I don’t know what you want and frankly I don’t care. He has me good. One wrong thing from me and I’m basically dead. But I have him good, too. He wants to get rid of him, he goes down, too. I just don’t want to follow him, capisci? I hate him, he needs me, I depend on him. It’s quite the complicated relationship.”

“But you do want to bring him down.”

“You don’t say!” she scoffed. 

“I have a proposition that might be to your interest, if that’s the case.”

“If this is some kind of stupid test he should’ve already known whom he sent you to.”

“We’re going to make him regret ever threatening us,” continued Ladybug, choosing to ignore the girl’s statement for the moment.

“How do I know it’s not a test, again?”

“What kind of proof do you want?”

“Surprise me.”

Ladybug took a moment to think things through. She couldn’t reveal too much until she was sure she could trust her, but she had to tell her something solid. 

“We’ve found out some things. Some things we don’t really like, including his own identity.”

“We.”

“It’s not just me.”

“Why the sudden hatred towards him, though? Weren’t you his prized puppet?”

“Some things just didn’t add up. It escalated quickly from there.” 

“I’d like to say I’m in.”

“But.”

“But it’s not enough to trust you of all people when it comes to this.”

“I won’t tell you who I am, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Hmm, might work, if you don’t have anything better.”

“I gave him false information.”

“Proof, LB, proof!”

“He wanted me and Chat to get him the police’s files on him and the Akumas. We did get it, rewrote it all and gave him a fake. I have the originals at home.”

“Would you be open to the idea of showing them to me? Tonight. Like, right now?”

“For fuck’s sake if that would make you say yes then yes!”

“I’m in. What do I need to do?”

That… that did confuse Ladybug

“…Huh? Just like that.”

“Pretty convincing for me. You’ll regret it if you’ve lied to me, though. And so will Papillon.”

“Good to know we have someone like you on our side. For now, tell me what you know and I tell you what I do.”

* * *

She was so important because Papillon needed someone close to the mayor. And she was in his good graces.

Of course she was. Of course that of all people _she_ was in his good graces. 

Of course of all people _she_ was Queen Bee. 

Which… actually… didn’t turn out that bad. The girl knew some things. Like, a lot. 

She didn’t know who he was, but she knew about his messing with some important documents. She knew about his messing with some people and some officials. 

She knew some good blackmail material that would be just welcome in their arsenal. 

The only thing that stood between her and her being officially part of the team was her not talking with the other two, not that that couldn’t get solved easily enough. 

After two hours of discussions upon discussions, after two hours of convincing and sharing information and planning, after two hours, the two girls finally parted ways.

The first thing Ladybug did was try calling her partner. In vain, though.

She convinced herself he was just busy with whoever he was talking to at the moment, so she let calling him for after talking to Alya.

She hadn’t really had any luck. The girl managed to talk with both Timebreaker and the Gamer. Both of them hated Papillon, both of them wanted to see him down, but both of them were just too afraid of what it could mean for them to be in so deep in their resistance. The only thing Alya managed to get from them was the promise of intervening in case of emergency, intervening in that moment that might arise when their actions could make a difference. 

Chat was still silent. Ten, then twenty then half an hour passed and he still didn’t answer his phone. When he finally did, nervousness was seeping through his voice and Ladybug could’ve sworn that wherever he were, he was pacing. 

“Chat! How on earth did it take you so long to answer?!”

“Yeah, well, you see, this thing happened and I got really busy…”

“Chat,” she said as a warning. She knew him better than anyone, she could tell when he was avoiding to answer something, especially when it was that obvious. 

“We’re in deep shit,” he finally responded. The nervousness was gone, replaced by something so heavy it weighted his voice, something serious and somehow resigned that Ladybug couldn’t really put a name to. 

“What do you mean?”

“Turns out Volpina should’ve been an actress, like, she would’ve got an Oscar or something like that after her first year in the industry!”

“Chat just tell me what the hell happened!”

“She played me, this is what happened. She played me and I just couldn’t figure her out fast enough. She played the perfect victim, she said she hated Papillon with a burning passion, that he had threatened her and that she never wanted that. She knew what we were looking for, LB, and she made me think we’d just gotten ourselves a new ally. But she wanted proof that I wouldn’t betray her. Thankfully, I didn’t tell her who was already in the team, but I told her was officially in possession of fake information. That’s all I told her, I swear. And then I saw the idea of a smirk on her and the alarm went off, you know. The fox is a born liar, I swear, she almost tricked me into trusting her again, but then she made a mistake, you know? She told me to tell her more about _the case_. The case I had never said anything about. Papillon knows LB, he knows a lot more shit than we first thought. We didn’t really think this through, did we?” he spoke faster and faster the further he went, but that last question, that was the question a doomed man asks, a doomed man who knows he had made the worst mistake of his life. 

But Ladybug didn’t want him to think that. It was not like that. It wasn’t. It could’ve been so much worse. 

“Calm down, Adrien. The worst thing that can happen now is that you don’t show your face anymore. As Chat, anyway. Just… just come to my place and we’ll talk about this properly, alright?”

“I’m on my way,” he said, swallowing, clearly not any less tensed.

When he arrived, slipping inside form her balcony, that tension didn’t leave him; if anything it became more pronounced. He started pacing back and forth, rambling all the while about how bad he messed up. 

“You didn’t mess up, Chat. I would’ve done the same. I did exactly the same with B. I was just lucky enough to actually have her on our side. You’re right, we didn’t think this through as much as we should’ve had, but it’s not something we can’t fix, or at least work with.

“Now tell me exactly what Volpina knows.”

He took a deep breath before speaking.

“She knows Papillon had been misinformed, she knows I had something to do with it, she knows I know a lot more and that I’m not alone in this. What she doesn’t know is who I work with, and what exactly I know about Papillon. Considering her slip up she at least suspects it’s something about the files we brought him that’s wrong.”

“It’s not the best case scenario, but it’s still better than what could’ve been. You figured her out pretty quick actually, so stop beating yourself up. Now we need to figure out what to do about you and  
Papillon, because my best guess is he already knows about you betraying him. You sure he doesn’t have any idea who you are?”

“I am. I don’t think he would’ve been this quiet at home if he even suspected anything. No hint of him trying to learn more about me, no change in his behaviour, nothing unusual.”

“Good, so you need to lay low now. Don’t do anything that might attract attention upon you.”

“That’s quite a problem. He leaves in a few days, we need to search his study once he’s gone.”

“…Right. But you said you knew your security system pretty well, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure I can figure out if he has anything installed there with the equipment I have now. Plus we have Alya. She can try connecting to his computer.”

“Exactly. But if anything goes wrong you don’t go back there, got it, kitty? You come straight here and here you’ll stay.”

“That’s pretty much to ask from you… I don’t want…”

“Oh come on! I won’t hear anything like that from you. I’ll be here no matter what you need, alright? Anything goes wrong and you’re here, no guilt or anything like that.” Her smile was bright and kind and encouraging. She got up from the chaise where she’d be staying and going to the still standing boy, she caught on of hand in hers, looking straight into his eyes.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, Adrien,” she continued, her gaze never leaving his and her smile never fading. “From now on, you’ll be Chat Noir only from the shadows, no appearance whatsoever, got it? And when the time comes, your father won’t even know what hit him.”

He didn’t say anything, but his own shy smile spoke volumes. With a gentle move he made it so he could hold her hand, too, and looking at their intertwined fingers Marinette felt more confident than ever, despite everything that had happened, for if they were together, everything would turn out alright in the end.

The night was still young and they still had much to talk about. They needed to discuss how Ladybug would supposedly react to his betrayal, what role was Queen Bee to play, how all would affect their initial plan. And if Chat fell asleep with Marinette’s fingers in his hair, well that just happened. Not that any of them complained when he woke up barely before the sunrise and left with a sheepish smile.

* * *

There was no time to lose. They had to act fast and to be more careful than ever, no more stupid moves, no more trying to find allies. 

Weakening Papillon, well that proved inefficient enough when it came to his Akumas. But there still were his documents, his contracts, his everything. His empire had been built on dishonesty and threats and theft, nothing even remotely healthy. And I nothing worked, they could give him exactly that as payback.

Two days and Alya still hadn’t managed to crack his computer. The man may not have been a specialist in tech, but apparently he knew someone who was and was neither Alya nor the Gamer. There were enough barriers and passwords and codes that at least it was safe to assume that once Alya cracked all of them, they would have access to some pretty interesting information. 

Adrien didn’t fare any better. He couldn’t really ask Nathalie for help with the security system, he couldn’t really ask his father for… anything and he could move a finger until the man left. Which would finally happen that night. This time around he didn’t have the luck of a power outage that would save him from being seen by the security cameras he was more than certain his father had in his office, but he had the equipment that had helped him in countless mission, and he knew where the safe was. If only the time passed faster…

Ladybug, Ladybug had almost lost all her privileges and safety, in the meantime. The next day after the incident with Volpina, once the night fell, she dared call Papillon, demanding where her partner was. The man almost caught her; multiple times. But Volpina wasn’t the only good actress there. She feigned confusion, she feigned disappointment and fury; fury above all the others. Fury towards her partner who dared betray them, her and fury towards Papillon himself who dared doubt her.

It was clear she’d lost some of the confidence he’d had in her, especially since she let the files unsupervised so that the cat managed to change them. If only he knew! He gave her a week to bring him the original files and to find Chat Noir. 

That gave them less time to work with. But that’d do, nonetheless. 

Queen Bee, on the other hand, she used the two days at their most. Papillon’s own file started gaining some substance. To the little the police had put down on that paper she had began adding everything that she knew and had. The mayor’s office was a bottomless treasure. She’d done her work for him well, but never forgot there might just be a chance he’d go down. So she kept every evidence she could put her hands on, every little paper and document and file she changed r even made for him with some information from the mayor himself and his stamp, everything she kept, and all that just kept piling up.

It was enough to bring him to prison for at least a few years. But that was still not all.

* * *

It took Adrien another three days to completely shatter the security in his own home. 

He had discussed it thoroughly with the others, shattering it should’ve been something like a worst case scenario, but nothing else had worked. No tricking the system, no stopping it, no cracking the passwords, no attempt of his had worked. So frying it, it was. He made sure he put his plan in action at night, while Nathalie was not present and watching the footage, and the moment he was sure no camera could even remotely work anymore, he went straight to the painting behind which he knew stood the safe containing most of what they needed. That proved another tough challenge, but one not as difficult as the previous. As it turned out, his father and Fu had more in common than they thought, for the mechanism that kept the safe closed was almost the same as the one hidden in the gramophone. 

Knowing what to look for proved such an important detail. The documents he brought Marinette were not only the contracts of each and every Akuma, but there were the designs Marinette had mentioned, there were most of the account statements they had ever had to get from certain companies and individuals, including the Mime’s, and then there were his own business’s papers, documents he was certain held some evidence on his numerous thefts. 

All those went straight to the others, piling up and up and making the folder thicker and thicker. 

When Alya turned up at Marinette’s house, dishevelled and with a laptop in her arms, first thing in the morning, saying she’d finally done it, they had all the pieces. 

Everything that hadn’t been in the safe was on the computer. Suspicious transactions, emails, data collected since his business started, everything was there. And everything was printed and added up to what they already had, making the complete picture of Gabriel Agreste’s criminal activity. 

Now, they could only wait.

* * *

The night found Ladybug and Chat Noir perched on a rooftop like in the old times. That feeling, that was something they didn’t want to give up.

They were staying side by side, watching over the city, no words necessary to understand what the other felt.

“Your father won’t give up.”

“Nope. But we still have something on him.”

“He will be very much aware of the fact that we won’t be able to turn him in to the police, even having so much on him.”

“Yes, but he’ll be scared nonetheless. If we turn him in, he’ll do the same for us, but it goes the other way round, too. He’s not a stupid man, he’ll know that.”

“It’s not gonna be easy...” she said after a slight pause. 

“It’s never been, though.”

“Yeah...”

Silence took over them again for a while. Until Chat broke it.

“Remember what we said some time ago? About doing something else? I mean...”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember...” she interrupted him, turning her head so he could see her smile. 

“Wanna start now?” he asked, grinning himself. 

“Let’s see what we can find, kitty.” 

The two rose to their feet and, gaining speed, started something that could’ve been a patrol. The promise of something new, something exciting and refreshing and good giving them a newfound hope. 

And confidence.

* * *

Paris had been quiet that night. Or at least, it had been quiet on their route. But that had been the beginning of something nonetheless.

* * *

Gabriel Agreste’s business trip to Milan was cut short due to personal problems.

The statement was kept vague. No one beside him and his personal assistant was supposed to know the exact reasons. But there were four more people who did.

Papillon returned the same they, demanding Ladybug’s immediate presence. It was useless to say he expected her to have her mission completed as well. 

She did. But he was in for a surprise. More, in fact.

When she entered his study with a thick folder in her hand and a confident Chat Noir in tow, Papillon didn’t even seem phased. But there was something in his eyes that made both of them think he hadn’t been all that ready for Chat’s attitude, if anything. 

“I see you have brought what I asked you to,” he said, keeping his cold stare upon her, not even gracing the boy with a glance.

She didn’t say anything, though. She just threw the folder on the desk right in front of him.

That did take him by surprise. 

“Do I see defiance?” he asked raising an eyebrow, still not looking at the files he was getting out of the folder. 

“You’re not looking hard enough,” retorted Chat, slightly mockingly. Only now did Papillon look at him. 

“Dismissed, Ladybug.”

But the girl stood right where she was, making absolutely no move. 

“We’re not finished here,” she said instead.

He opened his mouth and threw his gaze over the files at the same time, the words effectively dying in his throat. 

“What is the meaning of this?!” 

He spoke slowly, adding more venom to every word. 

“Our official resignation, of course,” answered Chat matter-of-factly. “Did you really think it would go on forever?”

“I believe you didn’t really think this through.”

“Then I believe you’re very much mistaken.”

“This is a game of power. I can destroy you.”

“Indeed,” came Ladybug’s answer. “But do you really want to risk it? Just think about it, you report us, we give the police _that_. You do anything to us and our loved ones and we give the police that.”

“You give that to the police and are granted some beautiful years of imprisonment.”

“But why-” continued Ladybug his line of thought with a smirk- “ would we care when you’d have already destroyed us?”

“I can end you both and ensure my own safety.”

“We are not the only ones who know about this. Something happens to you go straight to prison.”

“If it’s too much for your understanding, though, what my lady wants to say is you touch us, we end you.”

The man had the audacity to laugh.

“You forget who I have on my side.”

“What a coincidence-” grinned Ladybug- “ you don’t know who we have on ours.”

“What is it that you actually want?”

“Oh my, where to start?! So many things, Agreste. So many.”

“You claim victory in a game of chess played with only two kings.”

Both teens smiled devilishly before Chat spoke once again.

“But you don’t see the pawn, _sir_.”

With that, the two turned their backs to him and left the room. 

That was war.

* * *

Taking the contracts of each and every Akuma had not been for naught. 

That was what they would’ve needed when they first started scouting for allies. But it was never too late.

Alya had been going through all of them, piles and piles of papers with names more familiar than they would’ve liked. 

One by one, all those people were told what was happening and one by one all those people agreed it was time for a riot. 

It was Queen Bee’s moment of glory.

With the girl taking the lead, all those Akumas gathered in front of the man’s door, waiting for him. Not all of them were to meet him that night, but there were some, and when they wouldn’t go inside, Papillon was bound to get more and more annoyed until he’d finally leave his den. They didn’t expect that to happen too soon, but it did happen and once he opened his door, as one Chloé Bourgeois later bragged to her three new partners, she stepped forward with a smirk on her face and fire in her eyes. 

The others didn’t know anything about his identity, and barely knew the extent of his crime. But Queen Bee had been aware of all that since she started working together with the others, and she was the representative of the masses, she was the voice and the confidence and the rebellion itself. Their leash had finally snapped and Papillon could do absolutely nothing about that, for they didn’t need to know everything for him to think they did. And the man was just too careful to even risk his demise. 

When they all tore apart their contract right there in front of him he couldn’t do anything but fume. 

Ladybug and Chat Noir had been waiting with a hint of patience on the rooftop of Papillon’s building, talking quietly between them. When the two other girls finally joined them from below there was a moment of heavy silence, the grim expressions on B’s and Wifi’s making both their hearts skip a beat in worry. But then they broke into two identically bright smiles and Bee announced proudly everything  
had worked perfectly.

“Now we need to celebrate. We’re going at my place,” she continued already turning to leave. To say that the other three would’ve been confused was an understatement.

“…What?” Ladybug finally voiced the question on all their tongues.

“Oh puh-lease! Don’t tell me you haven’t figured out who I am yet. If it became obvious to me who you are, it should’ve happened the other way round, too. I had expectations from you. Especially you,” she added looking at a surprised Ladybug. 

This time it was Chat who reacted first. 

“…Huh?”

Rolling her eyes, but grinning nonetheless, Bee, continued:

“You know just too much about the Agreste old man, you made the mistake of bringing your laptop to school while trying to crack Gabe’s computer and you… well you were just too you every time,” she said looking at all of them, one by one. “Not to mention the constant unresolved sexual tension between you, two, dorks. It’s like you can’t stop looking at each other. Never. In and out of the mask.” 

It was more than clear who she meant. Alya just burst into a fit of laughter while both Marinette and Adrien turned beet red and tried to deny the “accusations”, failing miserably. 

“So are we going, or not?! I feel like eating some pizza and drinking some of daddy’s wine.”

Alya didn’t hesitate anymore, joining Chloé and high-fiving her like they had always been the best of friends, while the other two looked at each other, turned even redder and just thought how appealing that wine suddenly sounded.

* * *

Chloé was not as bad as she wanted to appear. She just needed someone to show her that. And now she had friends who could do just that, thought Marinette while munching on a slice of pizza and hearing the girl laugh genuinely for what was probably the first time since she knew her. 

The pizza was fabulous, the wine had done wonders and the celebration itself was more that welcome. The other problems could wait until the next day.

* * *

They did. Somehow. 

They had all fallen asleep after drinking a little too much. None of them had even been capable of thinking about the consequences at the moment. But when the alarm blared and Adrien jumped awake, he managed to produce a domino effect and wake the three girls as well. Alya’s loud curse was not loud enough to cover his own when the alarm was replaced by a very familiar ringtone. 

More awake than ever, Adrien took a deep breath and answered. The discussion did not go well. 

In vain did he try to explain he had been celebrating a friend’s birthday and that he just fell asleep, in vain did he try to convince the woman he hadn’t told anything because he had been sure he wouldn’t be allowed to participate, in vain did he try to even make her allow him to return home by himself. 

With something that might as well have been a snarl, he finally told her he was at Chloé’s hotel and hang up, looking at the three girls now very much awake as well. 

“Gorilla’s coming to pick me up.”

“We’ll that could’ve gone worse…” tried Marinette.

“Father wants to have a little discussion with me about leaving home without telling him, as well, apparently.”

“That doesn’t make things better, does it?” frowned Alya.

“I’m wearing Chat Noir’s trademark outfit. Even without the mask he’s gonna figure me out as soon as he sees me.”

“I can make some modifications, I’m sure I could change it a little…”

“Mari, Gorilla’s gonna be here in less than five minutes.”

“What are you gonna do, then?”

“Guess I’m lucky I’m already eighteen.”

“You remember what I told you, right?” asked Mariette with a serious face expression on her face. 

Adrien answered her with a faint smile. 

“I do. See you in two hours?” 

“If you’re not there in two hours on point I’m coming to your house myself.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said, already rising to his feet and going towards the door. He didn’t even exit properly before he was bringing the phone to his ear once again, frown back in place.

* * *

It took less than two hours for him to show up at the bakery, asking Sabine if her daughter was home. He didn’t even get to _finish_ asking the question before Marinette came rushing from the kitchen, a worried expression on her face that was replaced with so much relief once she took him in and saw he was alright.

“We need to get started on the project –” he started before she could say anything – “I have a photoshoot later today, so I can’t really work later.”

“We’ll be up in my room, mom. Shout if you need anything. Come on Adrien!” she said quickly before grabbing his hand and dragging him inside the house and towards the attic room. 

“You’re alright!” she almost screamed as soon as the trapdoor was closed, pulling him towards her and giving him a hug so tight it made his ribs hurt. 

“He wouldn’t have hurt me, Mari,” he said, hugging her, himself, and resting his head on hers.

“Didn’t make me any less worried, though. How did it go?”

“He was waiting for me at the top of the stair. He did figure me out as soon as he saw me. I told him everything in the end, and well, that was a fight that could go down in history. I told him I’m eighteen and that I don’t want to work for him anymore, not as Adrien and never again as Chat. I told him I’d move out and find a job and continue with my studies and everything. And you know, I really think I can do that. I mean I managed to secure my accounts before talking to him. That’s the phone call I made when I left the hotel, and I have enough there to pay for university, I’m sure. And I have all the money Papillon had given me in this two years as payment. And I’ll rent something and I’ll find something, I mean I might be good as a barista or I don’t know I might tutor some kids or be an instructor in fencing, or something…” 

He was rambling and he was worried and excited and happy and sad, all at the same time. But all that Marinette was feeling was pride. 

“You did it. You finally confronted him as you, you, too,” she said lifting her head from his chest to look into his eyes. 

“I did,” he said smiling, and leaning his head down, he gave the girl in his arms a butterfly kiss on the forehead.

Everything had been so unexpected and fast and nerve-wracking that she didn’t really stop to worry about what she did next: waiting until he lifted his lips from her forehead, she raised on her tiptoes and touched her lips to his putting in just enough pressure to convey exactly what she was feeling. It took him two seconds to respond to the kiss even more fervently and when they parted, both of them opened their mouths at the same time, twin confessions of “I love you” meddling together. They didn’t need more, for the kiss that followed- completely destroyed by the giggles and the smiles they just couldn’t hold back- was more than enough to make the honesty in those three words more than clear.

* * *

Alya and Chloé barge in an hour later, startling the new couple with their sudden entrance.

“How inconsiderate of you to start working on our project without us,” said Alya as soon as she entered. 

“At least they made some progress,” added Chloé teasingly, remarking the way they held each other’s hand. 

“Good to know but there still are some pretty important matters at hand.”

Alya was right, Marinette knew that better than anyone. She had had enough time in that hour to discuss their next course of action, and after he went over the fight with his father once again - which of course that made Chloé almost force Adrien to agree to use a room at her hotel for as long as he needed- they began explaining together what they planned to do next. 

Ladybug and Chat Noir turning from thieves to vigilantes had become more than an idea. It was full-fledged plan. 

“Gabriel won’t stop. Maybe he won’t threaten the previous Akumas anymore, but he’s in too deep to not look for more power and to stop using the ones that still work under him. We want to be there to stop him. Especially since we contributed so much to his ascension. And then… then there are many other people who might need some help from time to time. Starting with that guy who got in prison a few weeks ago for the statue concept and all those guys we’ve stolen from. And the Mime. And don’t even get me started on the robberies and the rapes and all that shit that we could maybe prevent. 

There won’t be any more money, but I’m pretty sure the reward it’s gonna be just as good.”

Alya smiled.

“I bet you’ll need a good hacker.”

“We could do with one,” said Adrien grinning.

“Buuuut, I don’t want to bring Lady Wifi back to life. She’s dead and she’ll stay so. I’m thinkiiiiing… Rena Rouge. Why let Volpina be the only vixen out there?! She needs some good competition, don’t you think?”

“Agreed.”

“I, for one, –” interrupted Chloé- “want to rub it in his face that Queen Bee can do more than work for him. Need one more partner, guys?”

“Wouldn’t do any bad, would it now?” smirked Marinette. “Let’s show Paris what we were really meant to!”

Because yeah, _that_ was what they had always been meant to do. Harming and stealing and destroying, that had never been them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Ideeeeas ;) ? I have the plot all sketched out but I'm not opposed to adding certain AU's in here. So let me know what you think.  
> P.S. Should I mention I've never had a boyfriend myself? (so please excuse me if I didn't depict the love in all its beauty)
> 
> P.P.S. Aaaaand.... I still need a beta-reader? Still no one who'd like to do it?


	4. Maybe...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some talking happens. And sleeping. Because sleep is important (not that I seem to know that or something).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo.... how are you, guys? Still alive? Still well? Yeah, me too, me too... hehe *glances worriedly from side to side expecting to be murdered*

The stress school oh so easily provided seemed more than insignificant now.

The tension he had dealt with that very week, being very much aware that things were going to change for good - for better or for worse - seemed irrelevant at the moment.

All the fear he’d gathered through the years – absolutely nothing.

Because what Adrien was feeling while crossing the city at full speed surpassed all those and then some more. 

To be more accurate, he didn’t even really know what he was feeling. There was fear. And anger. And uneasiness. And surprise. And then there was a strange relief, and pride, and shame and pity … his head was swarming with too many emotions and feelings and none of them seemed to agree with the others. But all of them were somehow dulled by a desperate scream echoing over and over in his head – she had to come back!

Both of them had to.

He was barely aware of his surroundings, the route towards Master Fu imprinted in his mind – muscle memory. Landing right in front of the door, he dropped his transformation without a second thought, taking advantage of the dark, and barged in, going straight to the room he knew Fu liked to use for such meetings.

All four people in the room were calm, but the tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife. His sudden entrance seemed to have brought them back from their thoughts, but the frowns adorning their brows remained.

“What did I miss?” he asked, sporting a frown of his own.

“Nothing. Really,” responded Chloé without missing a beat, annoyance clear in her voice. “He–” she continued, pointing towards his father– “insisted we wait for you before discussing anything.”

She was seated at a low table in the middle of the room, a mug with a steaming liquid clasped tightly in her hands. Right there, on the table, in front of her, lay two Miraculouses.

Gabriel had been staying in front of the glass doors, stoic as ever. When his son entered, he made himself tear his gaze away from the blossoming flowers on the balcony and turn towards the others. He was silent. And he was still cold.

“I’m here now. No need to be waiting anymore,” said the boy.

In two long strides that portrayed a confidence he didn’t really feel, he got to the table and sat down himself, facing his father. Their gazes met and one softened, but it was not Adrien’s. Their staring match was interrupted by Mater Fu, who put down on the table a still steaming kettle and threw Adrien a smile. He didn’t sit, though. Instead, he headed towards Nino who was speaking in shushed tones with the kwamis in a corner, aside from everyone else, and putting a hand on his shoulder, made him join the rest in the middle of the room.

They were all seated, except for Gabriel, who didn’t seem to want to leave from his spot beside the glass doors. Heaving a sigh, he was the one who spoke first.

“I have already told you most of what I wanted to do.”

“You’ve been vague.” Adrien didn’t hesitate. He was too far in to stop and consider and be afraid of his father. Too many things had happened for that not to change. 

“Maybe.”

“No maybe.”

Nino surprised them all with his statement. The tone, the hard look on his face, those were not things one would’ve thought of when saying “Nino”.

“No maybe-” he continued- “and this time there’s no chance you’ll get away without telling us every single detail.

“Not to mention Mater Fu doesn’t know anything beside the little we told him when we arrived,” continued Chloé not even bothering to lift her gaze from the mug in her hands. “And there were not all the kwamis. So please, Gabriel, get to talking already. There’s more than a life at stake, if it was not yet clear enough for you.”

And that he did. 

He went over everything once again, sounding almost bored, Master Fu and the kwamis not the only ones intent on his every words. The other three were just as well, waiting for a slip up, for anything that might have clued them in his lying about anything at all.

There had been nothing, but the night was still young. 

“As the book says-” he finally added, being seemingly done with everything he’d said on that rooftop- “the Miraculouses of Creation and Destruction, once united, can make any wish come true. That is still vague however, there are too many variables, too much is still unknown. Of course, at the time I made my plans I was not able to talk to the kwamis in question themselves. That might be something that could help us, but still, the akuma was not only meant to distract you and help me gain the upper hand, but help me get the answers to certain questions and show me the consequences of certain actions.”

“You were not wrong about the wish being tricky…” said Tikki, floating towards him. “It’s about how precise and clear you are when saying it just as much as it is about your own strength.”

“Once the Creation and Destruction come together there is basically no limit to what you can do,” came Plagg’s own intervention. “It’s too easy to lose tracks of yourself and everything that matters.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Maybe,” responded the God of Creation. “But once you started attacking innocent people, you proved everyone it’s not hard for you to lose sight of everything other than what interests you as long as it’s for your benefit. 

“That Akuma was an inspired idea, but it would have still been too risky; all those versions of you from the alternate universes wouldn’t have been really you, close as they were. And you might have indeed lost yourself, you might have made everything worse. It’s not you the one to whom the wish should be given, but…”

“Tikki…” came her counterpart’s interruption. 

Adrien didn’t know her, had never met her, never really heard much about her from Ladybug, but he just knew that that exhaustion and worry and tiredness were nothing at all like Tikki. And that spark of hope in her eyes, there was something wild about it. 

But Plagg… Plagg he knew, and there was something in his voice that told him there was more to it… 

“Tell them everything…” continued the cat kwami. “No matter how much you want to deny it…” 

Something like defeat.

“It’s magic, everything’s magic and magic is not something we can predict. It is about strength, but it’s not all there is to it. It’s magic… it’s magic and it never comes without a price. Never. It’s like how your powers can’t be used more than once and how your transformations drop after a few minutes, it’s like how no one can tell you’re the ones behind the masks, but you are, and still need to do everything as if you weren’t and smile, and be fine and never tire. It’s exactly the same, but now it’s lives we are talking about and powers we don’t really understand, the price would be so much bigger!”

“It happened before, didn’t it?” asked Nino, already knowing the answer.

“It did. Eons ago, but it did. She was a Ladybug and she lost herself in the battle against the evil from that time, she wanted it to be over, she wanted everything to end, so she asked her partner to give her his ring and she wished for the battle to stop, for the evil to be gone. And that’s exactly what happened, because she hadn’t been careful enough with her words. The villain disappeared. Just like that. He was there and then he wasn’t. And we were trapped in our Miraculouses once again.

“She couldn’t bear knowing she was the one who literally made a human being vanish. she couldn't bear knowing she "imprisoned" us. Guilt ate her on the inside and she hated herself so she assumed everybody else would’ve done the same. She shut herself in her mind and her mind couldn’t really take it in the end.

“That’s what magic is capable of; I know Tikki wants to deny it because she couldn’t bear it then and she can’t bear it know, losing her Ladybug. And I know she hopes that magic can undo everything, that that back then was just a mistake, but the magic she hopes might bring back Marinette could just as well destroy everything again. I know she hopes, I want to be able to do that too, but it’s just too much to lose.”

Maybe if he had been shouting it would have been better, less painful, but he kept his voice low, he kept his calm, an immense sadness tinting his words by the time he finished, and tears glimmering at the corners of his eyes. An undeniable finality marked his words, however. 

“We can’t use the wish to bring them back, it’s dangerous in too many ways and I don’t want to see anyone getting broken once again, not even you, Gabriel. I know Tikki doesn’t want it any more, even though she hopes. We need to find something else…”

His eyes were pleading and full of regret and sorrow as they met his counterpart’s.

“It’s not fair…” she almost sobbed.

“There is something else that bothers me though,” intervened Chloé. “I still don’t understand what’s up with the other Miraculous user, Mayura. I get it, she was a hero, she disappeared and somehow, in the meantime, got bad. That doesn’t explain anything yet, though. Plus, you said nothing about how things really went down that day.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to say something, but Fu was the first to speak, smile no more on his face and gaze unfocused, lost in memory.  
“Mayura was my fault,” he said solemnly. “It was the worst mistake I have ever made. She was not fit to be the Peacock and I failed to see it at the time. She was too vain, too selfish. The stories she created with her quill were good, but there was always more behind each, not for the ones who needed them, but for her.”

“Stories?” Nino voiced the confused question all three of them shared.

“That was her power. Creating stories, changing. With her quill she could rewrite some moments, just the way Volpina creates illusions with her flute and Ladybug creates things with her yoyo,” answered the old man. “All those peoples she helped as a hero, yes, they needed her, but she made sure she could get something out of helping them too. She was a smart woman, maybe too smart for her own good, as it turned out in the end.”

“You know who she was then,” concluded Adrien with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “That is a beginning, we can understand more about her, we can find clues, we might even get a lead and figure out how to bring back mom without the help of the wish!”

His excitement was infectious, his hope – brighter than anything. But with a shook of his head Fu made it all fade again. 

“I don’t,” he replied grimly. “I did, but when she disappeared so did my memories concerning her identity. I remember bits and pieces, I remember what made me consider her as a potential miraculous user, I remember what made me overlook her flaws, and I remember how she used to be, to a certain extent. But I don’t remember who she was, what she did for a living, whom she interacted with… I don’t even remember if I had managed to find out anything more about her the first time she disappeared… I’m sorry… I wish I remembered…”

Nothing is worse than having that fragment of hope, however small and frail, crushed in a matter of seconds. Nothing is worse than returning to the dark after seeing that little glimmer of light, however far away.

“Back to square one…” sighed Adrien.

“Wait a sec’…” interrupted Nino. Alya's journalistic instincts were rubbing off on him, after all, it seemed. “How come we’ve never heard a thing about Mayura, though? She was a superhero, the world must have looked up to her back then, Mister Agreste has said as much, but we’ve never heard a thing, not even when Lb and Chat first made their appearance. Why?!”

“It’s just like it happened with Fu’s memories of her as a person. When she disappeared she took away all memories of her, the only reason why the three of us can still remember some things about her is because we were directly involved, Fu by giving her the Miraculous and I by seeing her disappear,” came Gabriel’s prompt answer. He seemed to be deep in thought, detached from his words, as if that was a conclusion he had long since reached and there was something much more important he was on the verge of grasping.

“Three?” Nino gave voice to the question that flashed through all the teenagers’ minds.

“Her kwami, Duusu. When I activated the Miraculous back then, she was just as confused as I was, if not even more so. She could tell me bits and pieces, I’ve already told you, but everything was… vague. When I asked her about the woman’s identity, she couldn’t remember and then panicked. I admit I was quite… annoyed with her already and that was the last drop – I called back the transformation.”

Hearing her name, the kwami in question turned her attention to the others for a moment. The kwamis had been listening to the discussion up until Tikki and Plagg’s intervention. But after that, retreating to a corner far enough from the others so that they wouldn’t disturb, they had been carrying their own argument.

Duusu’s brief pause made the others attention flicker to the human’s table as well. They were far from reaching an agreement, but they couldn’t keep everything to themselves for ever. The matter needed to be addressed to their holders too in the end.

Heated glances, pained expressions, thoughtfulness, all remained even after finally joining their holders once again. 

“There was no one else when she disappeared?” frowned Chloé.

“No. She appeared in the middle of the street, not really attacking, but creating panic. Emilie and I were returning home. It was something so mundane, a stroll in the park and then home, something we had done so many times before… but then she appeared and everyone was backing away or straight up running and then she started coming towards us. That grin on her face, it still plagues me… I couldn’t understand why she’d do something like that, why she’d scare and threaten instead of protect, but Emilie… she didn’t stay to think about it or question it like me. She understood there was something wrong and she acted, she defended us. So when Mayura came in front of her she just… I don’t even know how she managed it, but she just dragged her away, a literal superhero! She dragged her in an empty side street, though Mayura overcame her initial shock and started to defend herself, too. I tried reaching them, but she was fast even with the… the extra weight. I couldn’t get to them in time. There was a scream and a flash and Emilie throwing something towards me… there… there was a sad smile on her face… I remember that… and the fear in her eyes…that stark contrast…that was what made me realise something was very much wrong. And then there was the explosion of blue and green and red and then there was… nothing... and all it took was seconds…”

The sheer pain in Gabriel’s words, those details that probably he didn’t even mean to tell them… it was striking and painful and…maybe… somehow… heart-warming to know that the one they had seen as some kind of monster was just as human as they were. He was just as much a victim in the end… a victim that broke under the sadness and guilt and who wanted to make everything right again, but used all the wrong means. 

“Back then… I had enough time to muse over it…” came Duusu’s shy voice. All the heads in the room turned towards her and she seemed to shy away for a moment, but, with her voice filled with barely controlled emotions, she continued:

“She tried to call for her power, I told you. But she didn’t just try to change the fact that your wife was there at the moment… I remember her fury, the absolute rage that clouded her mind… she wanted to… to… write her off basically. She tried to make her disappear for real and for good, but Emilie grabbed her quill and I believe she wrote something herself. She was not my holder, I was not connected to her the way I was with Mayura, so I only felt a change, but not what exactly the change was. In any case, she did something and the magic reacted to both of them and in both ways. What my holder did was wrong and the magic can’t work properly when that happens, doesn’t want to, but Emilie’s intervention, on the other hand, was made with good intentions and selflessly, and that the magic supported, so there was something like a conflict. The story was rewritten but there came a twist."

“So why don’t we rewrite the past, then? We could bring both Adrien’s mom and Marinette back!” tried Chloé, already knowing it was just too easy to be possible. 

Duusu shook her head.

“I doesn’t work like that… My magic, it only works when it comes to recent things, to recent actions, because it’s not as related to the past as it is to the present…”

“So how would it have worked on making mom disappear, then?”

“Three things are fundamental to my magic: you can’t rewrite anything but the recent past, you can’t do anything about yourself or the magic itself and you can’t touch one’s heart or mind. I may not remember whom she was, but I do remember the way she worked around these rules, I do remember she always respected them, but back then… I told you, her mind was clouded, I don’t know what made her like that, but there was clearly something wrong about her. She was about to ignore each and every one of them, that’s why I said there were negative consequences. It turned against her and made her civilian self be the forgotten one, while Emilie did disappear, but was not forgotten.”

“Well that’s a bummer…” pouted Chloé, furrowing her brow again. “Who was she even fighting?! Maybe the villain’s power had taken a toll on her, influenced her some way or another.”

“She wasn’t fighting someone like you have been.” Answered Master Fu. “I hadn’t been in Paris for too long at the time, but I remember that, comparing it to the others location I had visited since becoming a guardian, I thought I should be doing something. At the time, the city was confronting quite a rise in criminality. I had already made a mistake and I wanted to prove myself I could be a true guardian, thus deciding a hero was needed. I tried to be careful, to test the potential holders, and she seemed the best fit for the peacock Miraculous… but I was mistaken once again…” sighed the old man, not looking any of the others in the eye.

“…another dead end then…” 

Adrien was feeling sick. Everything was starting to be too much, to weigh too heavy, and all that talk only led to dead ends again and again. 

“There must be something we can do though!” he exploded. “Marinette must wake up and now that we know something however little it is that we know, we must do something about mom! We can’t use the Wish, we can’t use the Peacock’s powers, we can’t use the last akuma, we can’t use our powers, than what can we use?!”

A heavy silence fell over them but it didn’t last for too long.

“Combining the Miraculouses of Creation and Destruction could be an option-” started Wayzz- “though it shouldn’t be our first. Instead… instead we could try using the butterfly Miraculous.”

The teens’ voice rose in unison - a collective “no!” accompanied by glares sent the kwami’s way. Wayzz, though, seemed unfazed by that, choosing instead to continue his train of thought. 

“We’ve talked about it. Plagg is right and we might risk too much with the Wish, but using the butterfly Miraculous as it was meant to be used, creating champions instead of akumas, we might be able to find the solution. And this would also imply that a fit holder for the Miraculous was found.”

Gabriel didn’t protest, but he did intervene. 

“A good champion is the same as a good akuma. And one who could really help would need at least the same amount of magic the akuma I had created needed. The idea could work if enough magic were gathered in a short time.”

He avoided using “we”. He wanted to be involved, but he knew that first of all he had to gain their trust. And redeem.

For the first time that night, a smile lit the room. Brightening, Master Fu gave the verdict:

“The other kwamis might just be able to help with that.”

Hope is fast to spread, and so is a smile. Nino was the next one who dared to try one.

“So… what should the new holder be like?”

* * *

 

It was already past midnight when they agreed it was time to call it a day. All the events of the day had taken a toll on them and the tiredness had started to make itself unbearable. All of them were supposed to look for a new holder for the butterfly Miraculous, but not to take the decision by themselves. Instead, all proposition were to be discussed the next day, in the same place and at the same time.

That night Adrien refused to go home. His father didn’t protest, but there was something akin to hurt in his eyes when his son turned his back to him and left for the bakery. Quickly transforming in a secluded alley, he leaped over the rooftops that stood between him and his lady.

The trapdoor wasn’t locked, he knew that, but he also knew that the girl was laying underneath it, and disturbing her in any way was the last thing crossing his mind at the moment, so, cautiously, he went to a window instead, tapping gently on it. He didn’t need to wait for long before Alya opened it for him and let him in.

He didn’t even wait for the transformation to drop before he assaulted her with the question that had been plaguing his mind since the first minute after his departure.

“Any progress? How is she Alya? Does she breathe normally? Has she moved at all? Any sigh, any mumble, any… any anything?” he had leaped forward and caught her by the shoulders looking straight into her eyes for a glimpse of something, for a reassuring sparkle. 

There was none.

Signing him to be quiet she pointed to the loft where a sleeping Sabine was leaning against the wall probably having been watching over her daughter.

The two retreated to the farthest corner from her so they wouldn’t wake her up with all the whispering that was sure to follow. 

“She’s exactly the way she was when you left – yes, she’s been breathing normally, but other than that… nothing. Or at least not that I know of. Sabine and I have been keeping an eye on her up ‘til fifteen minutes or so ago when she fell asleep and I couldn’t go up there too. So instead I’ve just kept pacing around here keeping an ear out for any noise from her.

“Her parents are out of their minds with worry, Adrien. They’ve been both up here for hours but Tom had to go to sleep because he’d still have to wake up early and get ready, otherwise you would’ve found him here, too. They asked me to tell them what I knew a thousand times and I just told them there was this big fight and that Mari had been with me until I took off to find a good spot to film everything but there was too much going on and before I had the chance to, I saw you with her and came here. God, do you know how hard it is to lie to them?! They knew their daughter was with her friend and then she’s unconscious in the arms of a superhero with said friend seemingly knowing nothing about the reasons behind it. We have to tell them something concrete as soon as possible or they’ll literally go crazy trying to find a solution themselves, so please tell me there was some progress going on at Fu’s…”

Alya’s expression was a mixture of determination, worry and desperation. And tiredness. So much tiredness. Throwing a worried glance towards the loft where his lady slept, Adrien gave in. 

Priorities. 

Adrien started his whispered retelling of everything that had been said during their meeting, his own thoughts added to the story so she could get something at least resembling the complete picture. The kwamis didn’t shy away from intervening themselves and when everything was finally said, Alya took a moment to ponder over everything, to arrange the ideas she had herself and make her final battle plan.

“Sometimes I really wish life were at least a little less of a bitch,” she stated frustratedly. “I had been thinking about that Wish since you left, I had come up with a hundred ways to word it so it wouldn’t backfire and now that’s only plan Z. Alright, so be it, first things first we find a butterfly. Where do we even look?!”

“That’s… a good question, but I guess we do like we did with you and the others, too: the people we know first and then… the others…” 

* * *

 

The hours of the night melted away into dawn, all the “plotting” that had gone down ‘til then being put to a stop for the time being. Leaving the same way he entered, Adrien promised to come back, this time on the front door and with a decent explanation ready. As for finding the next Miraculous holder, they had already made a step in a promising direction. 

If only Marinette had been beside them, if only Sabine hadn’t been sleeping... maybe then the faint movement of a hand wouldn’t have gone unnoticed sometime during that long first night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I know... and after such a long time, too... I'm sorry... but I'll make up with the next one, so hey cheer up you'll get to see Marinette in action again soon (care to guess to what universe I plan to send her off to?:))) )  
> I'm really sorry for being absent for such a long time, but this second term was absolutely crazy, from whatever point of view you prefer. I had three competition + the mock exams + the finals + architecture courses every Saturday. I don't want to complain, because everything was ore than rewarding and I loved every moment of it (except the finals. those were just stupid and harmful for my sanity - and health), but I kinda want to convince you to bear with me (?) and thank you for your patience if you decide you still want to tag along :))  
> Now... on a side note... Mayura was meant to be Paon. then came the spoilers and I took the chance because why the hell not :))))) the closer to canon the better :))) . That's 1.  
> 2 - I did some editting for the others chapers, too. Oh my good please warn me when you see they're in such a mess visually-wise. I mean wtf was that with the last chapter?!  
> And 3 - Oh my Goood I sooooo neeed a beta reader :((( come oooon I promise that if I have someone to push me from behind, to pressure me into respectind some deadlines, I do a muuuuch better work (bt when would you like me to post? whenever I have a chapter read, like now, or on a specific day - like one you'd come up with because I lack inspiration)  
> And yes I'm done with my rambling, sorry :))


	5. To be or not to be... me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marientte is Marinette and Adrien is Adrien except not like usually, aka the life swap au that makes Marinette understand a little more about herself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> November huh?
> 
> In my defence, I've had this chapter ready since September, but... well, long story short, I thought I've finally found a beta-reader, I've sent them the chapter and I told them to take their time looking over it... and I've waited and waited and waited... but they haven't even answered my text messages for a while now so I decided to post it in the end... so yeah... still not beta-read. Tell me if there are mistakes of any kind or if i didn't format t well when posting.
> 
> Sorry for making you wait so much... If anyone wants to help me with ideas or beta-reading... I'm [valiantlyjollynightmare](https://valiantlyjollynightmare.tumblr.com/)on tumblr.
> 
> I hope you'll like this chapter. I worked a lot on making it have at least some sense :))

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was beautiful.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was talented. 

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was smart.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was…tired, grumpy and… _content_ that morning. Which was weird to say the least considering she had literally no reason to feel anything but tiredness at five in the morning after a day of school, _before_ a day of school, after having woken up form a restless and _dreamless_ sleep.

She’d take whatever she had though, it was not the time to ponder life’s mysteries. 

With a renowned fashion designer as a mother and a successful actor as a father to say her life was one of luxury and fame would’ve been an understatement. 

Jagged Stone was in her contact list, the mayor Bourgeois was basically family and she was Paris’ most famous model. A phone call and whatever it was that she wanted was hers. 

Except school.

To convince her parents that it would’ve only been beneficial for her and her development to go to a normal school she needed 10 years, the intervention of one best friend Chloé Bourgeois and to literally enrol by herself in one, evade her bodyguard and run there on the first day. She needed a year just to build up the courage for that. It was not easy but, finally, at sixteen she was finally free of home-schooling. Not that Chinese, fencing and tennis counted as home-schooling, anyway. 

Fast forward two years and you get exactly that – a tired, grumpy, _so not ready to deal with anything_ Marinette who had to wake at effing five in the morning for the effing fifth day in a row because her mother liked so much how the rising sun complimented her skin tone and hair colour in photos. And because it was better for her schedule in general.  
Of course it never mattered she’d never cared about that. None of that. Or that she didn’t even agree with that. Again, none of that. 

And of course she would never dare complain about the schedule, lest all those efforts would have been in vain after all. 

A sigh, a mumble, a quickly forgotten sense of contentment and a knock at the door later she was up and about and still not ready. 

Eat that frog, Mark Twain once said. 

She’d do that, and then… hope for something tastier.

* * *

If the photoshoots were the ever dreaded frog, school was… well, school was school.

She had her friends, after all.

At first it was anything but easy, but Chloé was there and she somehow managed to be a friend for her. The blonde could be mean sometime, but Mari knew she was actually envious; she could be overbearing, but Mari knew she was just lonely; and then there were the moments when she was loud and bubbly and… happy. Or sad, or tired, or content and in those moments Marinette knew she was… herself.

No, Chloé was far from perfect, but Marinette knew her and she knew she just needed someone to actually be there for her and maybe show her what she did wrong.

…That last part was something she was still working on.

Marinette knew all that and by doing so Chloé was less of an enigma for her and more of a friend. If only their classmates would agree as well…

To say there were… divergences between the two girls and the others would’ve been kind of an understatement. 

While Chloé refused to make amends, while she kept on nagging at them and throwing heavy words left and right when she felt threatened or wronged, their classmates refused to put up with her behaviour. And while Marinette understood both sides, she couldn’t give in to neither. On the one hand she didn’t want to leave her oldest friend alone – on the other, she didn’t want to make enemies out of all those potential friends. So she had become some kind of _in between_ after some tensed weeks.

The only one who tried staying by their side, too was Sabrina. She _had_ been by the blonde’s side all those years before, but now that Marinette was in the picture, Chloé tended to ignore the redhead and with a newfound freedom, some rekindled friendships with the others and a spark of rebellion… well she was not an ever-present figure anymore… which kind of helped Chloé start to take care of her own problems by herself, though. 

Marinette had tried. She had been kind, sweet, understanding whatever one would’ve ever wanted, but she kept standing by Chloé’s side and that just didn’t make her too likeable. First everybody was cold towards her, then just reticent and then… they just left her be. They were… okay with her. None lost their temper with her the way it often happened with Chloé, not even Alix or Alya. They listened when she had something to say and even accepted her as class president when she volunteered alongside her best friend. They even carried long conversations with her and laughed and joked but they were not… entirely real. 

It took her half a year to finally understand Chloé wasn’t the only one reducing dramatically her chances to finally make friends. 

Her status and reputation and fame and everything had arrived before she herself did and some of those things just didn’t bode well with some. One would’ve thought everyone would be over the “rich kid” stereotype after some time of knowing the girl behind it, but being best friends with Chloé didn’t really help her case and, the free passes she got because her parents were who they were and they _just needed her at work_ were even worse; and sometimes her own stubbornness and temper made the perfect cherry on top. 

Although she managed to keep Chloé from lashing out at her classmates, although she carried her duties as class president irreproachably, although she was always there when someone needed some help, people were still weary of her, watching her with a hawk’s eye and never letting her be completely herself as well.

Marinette learned quite fast that slipping up and not being perfect meant consequences even when surrounded by people her age. Form the first day of school in fact. 

Seeing Chloé stick gum on someone’s seat didn’t quite bode well with her. Yes, she was used to the blonde’s antics, yes she knew she could be vengeful, but that was just not right, whoever the “victim” was and whatever they had done. So she did the only thing she could: she stopped her and tried removing it herself. 

Of course she should’ve known it wouldn’t go according to the plan – how could she dare hope for more luck when she had already had her fair share of it, what with her parents finally giving in. Of course she should’ve known that Chloé’s target would enter the room just then and see her there and assume the only thing that was really plausible: birds of a feather flock together. 

Adrien, as she later learned his name was, didn’t want to listen to her when she tried explaining with a smile and, really, could you blame her for treating him with the same attitude after that? 

The moment she crossed her arms and scowled at him telling him he was being unreasonable and rude and that he probably “didn’t even care for an explanation” it didn’t really matter anymore that there were people in the room who had seen her trying to do the right thing. 

She acted like Chloé and that was strike one. 

Later that day she did apologise and even gave the boy her umbrella when she saw he didn’t have one. 

Adrien just looked at her for a moment. Than he smiled, took the umbrella and told her everything was alright.

If her heart started to beat faster, she didn’t give it a second thought.

Although there was no problem with Adrien anymore the harm had been done. No one tried to approach her the next days and no one tried too hard to keep the conversation going if she made the first move.

When the smiles had been too hard to bear anymore she just gave up and stuck with that one friend she knew was real. And the smiles became a little less fake.

Surprisingly enough Adrien was the first to initiate a conversation with her. It happened a few days later during lunch break. Chloé had a last minute appointment to go to and couldn’t spend the hour with 

Marinette the way they usually did. It didn’t help that the girl had already announced her parents she wouldn’t come home for lunch. 

While all the other kids went home or outside to take advantage of the last warm days of the year, she remained inside the classroom trying to make it less obvious that it felt miserable to be alone (again). 

She was sketching, half absorbed in her own little world, when Adrien flopped down on the seat next to hers and greeted her with a cheerful “hi”. 

It was unusual for him not to be accompanied by his best friend, Nino, and with him – Alya, but she didn’t complain, especially when he started cracking puns and jokes so stupid they were good and making her snort of all things. The other two did come, after all, after half an hour and she discovered she could fit quite well in their little group of three. 

They became her friends somehow, not that she could spend too much time with them for that matter. 

For one, Chloé didn’t really like them. She somehow understood why. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world, they were happy to be themselves, to be dorks, to be geeks, not to mention that they were basically friends with everyone; and they, especially Adrien, managed to brighten the room whenever and wherever. They were her complete opposite. Marinette tried to make her see they weren’t that bad and while that did make her change her attitude even if just a little, that didn’t mean she wanted to spend time with them. Not that she could really spend time with many others beside Marinette. 

So Marinette stood with her. Few were the times she could join even one of them though and feel a little more at ease. 

Then… she couldn’t really spend her _free_ time with them. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she either didn’t have any or wasn’t allowed to. In the beginning it was easier to convince her parents they were a good influence for her and she could get a hold of an hour or two of free time to hang out. Then came her birthday and Alya insisted it was absolutely impossible and unforgivable and unimaginable for her to not have a party; of course the other two agreed wholeheartedly. Their telling that to her mother wrecked it all to pieces and in the blink of an eye Alya, Adrien and Nino had become a bad influence. To make everything better, the black haired girl had not been inspired enough to leave it at that. She insisted so she grasped whatever occasion… but she could only spend so much time with _Chloé_ after all.

And she made the final mistake to get in the Ultimate Mecha Strike III Competition.

What gained her bonus points with her classmates, made her loose some very important ones with her parents. She ( _dared_ ) let her grades slip by focusing on much too trivial things and that just wouldn’t do.

And suddenly she didn’t really have a lunchbreak anymore. 

Still, at school things were…better. Until strike two.

Career Day was supposed to be a good day. 

Her mother had promised to come. 

Then she didn’t. 

It had hurt… much less then she’d thought it would. Still, the others were there. Chloé was jubilant, for one and that alone was enough to bring a small smile to her face. Then she found out her new, very expensive and very fabulous bracelet disappeared and of course the first one supposition she made was theft. All the cringes in the word couldn’t take the duty she had away from her. Yes, Chloé was making a scene and yes, there were adult present, there was even an effing police officer present, but she was still class president. And when Chloé insisted Adrien surely had it because she knew for a fact she had it before he managed to trip with that tray of croissants just beside her desk, well Marinette couldn’t really do anything but check his bag. His insistence that he didn’t do anything was nothing compared to the sheer betrayal in his eyes when she told him they still needed to check. That physically hurt. And the glares Alya sent her way burnt. 

Of course he wasn’t guilty, she could’ve sworn it without a second thought. Of course Chloé had just misplaced it, but still, even mister Raincomprix agreed when he said suspicion was best avoided with a simple, harmless check. But everyone knew she and Adrien’s group were _friends_ and if she allowed herself to doubt her friends… well once again she acted like Chloé enough to bring whatever progress she had made down a few notches. 

It was funny really. If she managed to make everything better quite quickly after that, life didn’t really give her a break. 

Strike three meant letting Alix’s watch, a _family treasure_ indeed, be dropped. And basically breaking it too. 

No one really forgot that since it happened. Especially Alix. 

Ironically it didn’t stop at three.

Strike four… strike four really made her feel bad.

She fell in love.

To be more accurate… she _realised_ she had fallen in love. 

Adrien’s sweet and caring nature, his mischief and liveliness… all those had done it in the end and she fell for him. Hard. Not that anyone knew that or something. She couldn’t tell Chloé because she already knew she would get no support from her, maybe judgement neither, but, well… she knew she didn’t like him after all. She couldn’t tell Alya, because even if Alya was her friend she was closer to Adrien… and that just… was not the best case scenario. Nino was out of the equation for the same reason. Even more so. And the others… that just would’ve been awkward. Her parents included.

Especially with her parents. 

She kept it in and she was alright, really. If she took whatever chance she had to go to the bakery and buy something ist so she could talk to him a little more, well, that was excusable. She even managed to get her stutters under control after a few really embarrassing weeks. She even managed to give him her lucky charm during that Mecha Strike tournament and she even managed to give him a present. Sure, he didn’t know it was from her, after all it was her fault for not leaving a note in the first place and when his grandmother came and she brought him that little, little T-shirt, well it really was for the better that in the end he thought it was just a fake present and that the real one was the scarf. He was happy and that was what the present had been meant for in the first place after all. No biggie.

But somewhere in between all those moments Nathaniel fell in love with her. She rejected him in the worst way possible, probably: after he heard Chloé’s biting remarks. 

She tried to be sweet. She tried to be kind. She tried to be honest. 

She told him she already liked someone else. 

Someone had heard. Or maybe Nath had said something himself to someone. She didn’t know. 

What she did know was that after that everybody had heard the rumours about her arrogance and superiority. About how she thought everyone who wasn’t rich was beneath her. 

Chloé fully agreed with that specific line of thinking, but that didn’t stop her from taking Marinette’s side and counterattacking them, insisting that that was not like Marinette. 

Adrien, Alya and Nino supported her telling everyone it was a big fat lie.

Nath didn’t hesitate to argue against them, too. 

That made her feel worse. And the rumours spread faster and stronger. 

Strike five was what really did it, after all, though. 

Because in spite of her best judgement she was still human and humans, in spite of their best reasoning, still got jealous sometimes. And well… Adrien was her crush after all. 

Things had been somehow… ok. Not perfect, but decent. 

Then came Lila and she had that… that extraordinary life and she managed to get Adrien’s attention and she simply knew she wouldn’t stand a chance in front of the Italian girl. When she found out she was a liar everything had brightened up for a second only to get a thousand times darker when she simply exploded in front of the new girl. She… she really couldn’t contain herself back then - she was about to steal away not only the boy of her dreams but the only thing that was truly, actually, irrevocably hers, too. So when she mentioned she was friends with Ladybug, although she was much better than the mysterious girl, well… it was almost like that first day of school. 

Except it wasn’t. Because Lila started crying and even Chloé looked at her with judgement in her eyes. An apology didn’t really make it better, instead it brought her something akin to a sworn enemy. 

That kind of sealed the deal. After all, she _was_ like Chloé. 

And everything was just… colder. 

One day. Two. Three. It became kind of a game, really – see how well you can pretend everything’s got back to normal.

It didn’t help that the school-year was a couple of weeks away from its end. 

Her behaviour was spotless during those. 

Somehow, they were all in the same class for the second year in a row. Chloé said it didn’t always happen, but she was kind of glad to have Alya and Nino and Adrien back. The others, too. After all she hadn’t managed to get in touch with most of them, and even with those with whom she did, the conversations were short and didn’t happen as often as she would’ve liked to. 

When she entered the classroom she was met with Chloé’s genuine smile. She hadn’t changed, at all during the summer, although her second best friend had somehow become one Lila Rossi in the meantime. She still hugged her tight and started talking obnoxiously loud and tell her about her vacation. 

What she didn’t do was grab her by a sleeve and drag her to her seat. 

Her seat where Lila sat watching her with a vicious smile and a gleam in her eyes.

When Chloé asked if she minded if she shared her desk with Lila that year, her smile turned the fakest of them all and sweet words left a bitter trail on her tongue when she said that no, it was no problem at all. 

It was painful to turn around and look for a vacant seat. She was not the last to enter the classroom but in the time Chloé kept her busy almost everyone had come. 

The pairs, the groups, were pretty much made. Not that she would’ve really been welcome anyway, she knew that. Her only chance were the three friends that could make everything turn into a golden opportunity after all. If only Nino and Adrien weren’t already comfortably seated at their usual desk. If only Alix weren’t just throwing her backpack on the seat just behind them, shooting Alya a bright smile. 

A promising year, indeed, it had proven itself from the beginning. 

Ensuring the smile wouldn’t slip, she made her way towards the four in hopes of brightening her morning even just a little bit. 

The smiles they gave her when they saw her approaching were… truly empowering. But their little chat didn’t last long. Whoever said the bell was a saviour… had… kinda lied.

Miss Bustier wasn’t one to be too late, so Mari clenched the strap of her backpack and threw a quick look around in hopes of finding a new deskmate.

No such thing.

Her friends were taken, Mylène had moved with Ivan behind Alya’s seat, Nath was sitting with Sabrina behind Chloé and Lila, behind them - Kim and Max and then Juleka and Rose. That left her with herself.

The smile didn’t slip all the way up to that last vacant desk.

As the days passed she kind of got used to sitting alone. Yes, she could be so much more attentive to the teacher in front of the classroom… but that meant it was so much quieter. It wasn’t unbearable, though. Yes… it was beneficial.

If only her breaks hadn’t become so much quieter, too. 

At first Chloé never missed a chance to go to her friend as if nothing had changed. And when Lila insisted Chloé stayed with her, she’d just go with her group of friends. 

But Lila did know how to use that time she was seemingly alone quite well. Slowly, slowly, she made everyone love her again. She was friendly, outgoing, bright and perfect altogether. Sure, she had started off quite badly, but she was _the new girl_ and she _wanted to fit in_ , not to mention she had been called out for that in such a _rude_ manner. 

Her life was interesting even without those first lies. 

And people liked that.

What people didn’t like was Marinette’s strike six.

It was obvious Lila hated Marinette with a burning passion. Or rather… it was obvious from Marinette’s point of view. Her smiles were just a little too bright, her eyes just a little too squinted, her voice just a little too cheery. Her remarks just a little too snide. 

But she was good at hiding it when others were looking. 

Mari not so much. And she _was_ known for her hot temper after all.

The glares she send the brunette’s way could not be tolerated infinitely. Her flat voice and face could be accepted just so much. Her sassy replies could go barely noticed for just so long.

Even Rose told her she was cruel then. 

_Rose._

Rose, who was the sweetest girl in their entire classroom, who never believed in those rumours, who never really looked at Marinette with painfully obvious scepticism. 

Then Alya and Nino told her she was being childish. And Adrien that she had forgotten _her_ days as a new student. 

She believed. 

She apologised ~~again~~. She berated herself. 

And then she just kept quiet.

After that Chloé started giving her best to make her two best friends make amends and knowing that telling her one, two, three more times that she and Lila just didn’t… click wouldn’t work, Mari started making up excuses to evade her friend’s attempts. And suddenly Lila wasn’t the only one for whom lies seemed to work alright.

And Chloé found a new best friend.

Alya, Nino and Adrien never really left her during breaks when they didn’t have something important to do, but they were still _a bad influence_ so her interactions with the three were limited to those short breaks and the phone conversations she still managed to slip in between all her activities. And _during_ her activities. Not that it was easy even like that. And her parents surely didn’t help. 

Somehow, Lila managed to sneak up on her three other friends too.

Oh no, she didn’t magically make them and Chloé get along, but, unlike Marinette, Lila had time she was allowed to spend however she wanted. And she wanted to make friends out of Alya and Nino. And obviously a boyfriend out of Adrien.

When they started talking about Lila with her it stung. 

They went to the park and to Adrien’s bakery and to the zoo and to the movies…

They had always asked her to do those things with them too. She had always wanted to. She had almost always been unable to go. 

Until they started, much like Chloé, to ask her to hang out with them _and_ Lila. 

It was less then appealing and less than understandable for them and… lies seemed to work again. And not being able to go seemed irrelevant when she didn’t even want to. 

Then Adrien built up the courage and told them about that one anonymous friend of his who was fantastic and awesome and perfect and intelligent and sassy and perfect and talented and funny and perfect. Whom he loved.

She smiled. And thanked God when the bell rang and she could go back to her desk again to be alone and just… not think about how he was probably talking about Lila.

She smiled. And started to think it was high time she focused on more important things.

She remained class president. People might not have liked her too much, but she had proved she was capable and she was one of the top students after all. 

That was one of the four things that actually seemed to actually go well for her.

The second was her studying. She had top grades in every subject, she was fluent in Chinese, and it really didn’t hurt she was one of the bet fencers the school had ever had. True, Physics and Chemistry still gave her headaches but she still managed to ace them all; not that she really had a choice in that matter after all.

The third was her performance as the perfect girl everyone wanted her to be.

Smile and pose.

Smile and talk.

Smile and be quiet.

Smile and study.

Smile and fence.

Smile and run.

And do it all again. 

Don’t complain because that’s stuck up.

Don’t glare because that’s childish.

Don’t lose your cool because that’s rude.

Don’t be late because that’s immature.

Don’t be loud because that’s arrogant.

Don’t be proud because that’s condescending.

Don’t be tired because that’s selfish. 

And keep it all to yourself.

Once she really got the gist of it, people started smiling back after a while. Even her parents said once they were pleased. 

Not even Lila managed to find something to complain about.

And then the fourth. And the best of all.

Her blog. 

_Miraculous_ was her little baby and the best thing that ever happened to her. Not that anyone knew about that for that matter. 

She started it as a blog dedicated to fashion when she was fourteen and angry with her parents. With her mom. Then she added doodles. Then rants. It escalated quickly from there. 

Quite soon it became too much for her to manage alone, and suddenly Ladybug wasn’t the only administrator anymore. 

First was Chat Noir. 

He was one of her first readers. And contributors. The anonymous boy was notorious for the “memes and fun” section he basically got started in the first place.

When her rants weren’t the only ones anymore and others started popping up in the comments section, she started commenting herself with some advice. That was not something only the administrator could do, so Chat tagged along somehow, shyly at first then with much more confidence in his own advice. Of course, there were others who intervened too, from time to time, but the two of them were almost omnipresent. 

When she decided it was high time those rants made it out of the comments section and created a separate page dedicated entirely to people who needed advice or simply wanted to vent and have someone who could listen to them, Chat Noir was the first person she emailed. She didn’t know whom he was, but she knew _how_ he was and that was all it mattered. He was funny and optimistic and thoughtful and sweet. And his advice was pretty damned good. So she bit her lip, found his email address and sent him a message where he asked if he wanted to become and administrator along with her.

He accepted in a heartbeat and from then on their partnership began.

The blog’s new section was a blast and the number of readers doubled.

He became a constant in her life and although she was quite reticent when it came to giving away personal information for more reasons than one, she and Chat got to know each other pretty well. They were the same age. He was a scientist to be and she was the world’s next greatest designer. He was everything she thought him to be and then some more and he grew on her so fast she was pretty sure it was safe to call him one of her best friends pretty quickly; by the time she turned 16 he was undoubtedly. She had to admit, all his flirting and all his puns _had_ been kind of annoying to say the least, in the beginning, but after a while not only did they grow on her, but she came to _like_ them, too. Not that she’d ever admit it _out loud_ , of course. Beside the _Fashion_ section she loved so much she added _Crafts_. Chat added _Games_ beside his “fun corner”, as he liked to call the section he had been managing. After that, as a joke, he started calling those who wrote to them seeking advice _akumas_ because _they needed someone to deevilize their thoughts._ She was aware of his obsession for anime so she laughed it out but went along. It stuck.

Then there weren’t people seeking some kind of personal advice anymore, but people who simply wanted to learn more about events and music and books and movies and fairs and social media and surprisingly enough there was a certain girl who always seemed to know everything about anything. 

_News and Entertainment_ became a category in its own and Rena Rouge joined their growing team of administrators.

 _Music and Film_ though, that had become more of a category in its own. It was not about new albums and concerts anymore, but about YouTube’s uprising artists, the best DJs and mixes and covers and sheets, about festivals and contests and tips and Rena admitted she couldn’t keep up with all that. She was more of a reporter kind of person than a musician or director.

So Carapace entered scene. And made quite the _performance_.

Fashion was already a thing so the popular demands of make-up trends and advice didn’t really come as a surprise. 

Marinette might have been a model and a fashion enthusiast, but she barely knew the basics when it came to make-up and a certain Queen B’s interventions didn’t go unnoticed. 

She became the official fifth member in the _Miraculous_ team.

The collaboration with Chat, Rena, Carapace and B was maybe the best thing that had ever happened to her aside from becoming Ladybug in the first place maybe. Talking with them… was easy. It came naturally, effortlessly. Talking with them made her feel liked and wanted and appreciated and… like herself. She could say anything, she could come up with the most random line in the middle of a serious discussion and that would most probably only get her a bad pun or an even worse joke. She could tell the stupidest jokes and that would only get her a plethora of laughing emojis from Chat and creatively written _groans_. She could come up with the most idiotic idea and nothing but patient explanations or heated debates would await her.She could make mistakes and the sword above her neck wouldn’t move a notch.

Of course they weren’t perfect. They were far from it, but their imperfection was somewhat the perfect one. All of them had said their fair share of stupid things, all of them had done their fair share of mistakes, all of them had their fair share of… bad days, but there had always been a certain kind of understanding and patience that made them capable of seeing _past_ those. 

Queen Bee had been the worst at first. When they started working together it turned out she couldn’t have chosen a better alias. In a couple of weeks’ worth of collaboration she managed to short their lifespans with triple that and get them wrinkles from all the frowns that would more often than not follow her texts, but behind the mean replies and seemingly cold lines was always something more, something true and warmer. Raw sincerity and sheer force of will made the four other bloggers bring out _that_ part of her, the one that was genuine and sincere and a lot less harmful. 

All of them had their little quirks, but she loved them to pieces nonetheless.

They thought that was it until doodles became more like art and professional photography started to be a thing to. They really should have expected it much earlier…. That was a thing Marinette had managed to keep under her supervision for quite a while, but the advice section still took most of her time, not to mention the fashion-related one. Thus started their quest to find a sixth official administrator… whom they hadn’t yet found.

Unlike the last four cases, there was no one who showed a constant activity in the comments section or even amongst the submitters. Yes, there were many who showed _interest_ and expressed their liking or even disliking of certain pieces, but none who offered good and constant critique or who proved themselves able to influence the community the way Chat, Rena, Carapace and B did. Yet.

Managing the blog was not an easy task - nothing seemed to be for Marinette, but at least that she loved. Every spare moment was dedicated to writing fashion articles, designing pieces she would later post and sometimes even bring to life and, especially, putting together that perfect piece of advice she knew someone really, really needed, along with Chat, and carrying on long conversations that would hopefully lead to an eventual solution, a newly found _hope_

Marinette was far from stupid. Once she was in school she couldn’t help but notice how some of the stories they came up with advice for were just a little too familiar. The usernames could only hide so much.

What hurt was to know that a lot of them had something to do with her or Chloé. The list was long and from Stoneheart to Volpina it wasn’t really hard to figure out who had hurt whom. 

She tried to make her advice as rational as possible, as sweet and kind and thoughtful as she could. She still felt guilty from time to time. She still felt like she was tricking her classmates into forgiving her and Chloé. But Chat always seemed to think along the same lines as her and that, combined with that almost imperceptible contentment she could see on the latest akuma’s face at school after answering their call always made her feel a little better and a little more determined to fulfil the responsibility that came with being that one person they seemed to trust. That one akuma who never accepted their opinion _was_ quite a setback, but then again Lila was Lila and maybe she hadn’t known her for long, but she could tell she was not on to easily accept defeat in whatever form or manner. 

Her routine had been seriously damaged once her mother decided the photoshoots would mostly take place at the crack of dawn. 

She was used to sleeping in as much as possible, going to school, going to her other activities and then staying as late as possible to get everything done. Whatever free time she wasn’t spending with her friends was dedicated to the blog. 

But once the five a.m. photoshoots started to happen, she started being too tired to stay up past eleven at most, not to mention that the breaks during said photoshoots were spent napping on whatever chair she found. She knew that one morning wasn’t about to get any more pleasant or productive. 

But once the frog was out of her plate, who knew what the day could bring.

Nathalie’s never smiling face greeted her in the otherwise empty dining room. The cheery voice and the bright smile she had made sure to put on the same way she put her blazer didn’t make a difference.  
The breakfast was dull and tasteless and the silence heavy – as per usual; to no one’s surprise, the ride to the set even more, so. 

At school, the same old routine - too bright greetings met with too bright smiles and a shy wave met with a painful obliviousness. For the nth time Lila was taking upon her all the attention of the only other three people who actually cared about Marinette. The girl never missed a chance and Chloé’s tendency to arrive as late as possible was nothing if not one of them. 

For the first time though, the routine broke and Marinette didn’t look down and sigh and step away towards her desk. 

For the first time she felt she had spent enough time waiting and watching how her friends were taken away from her. It was a strange feeling, really. It could go a hundred kinds of wrong. 

For the first time she didn’t really care.

When she put a hand on Alya’s shoulder, joining the four, she felt her expression turn genuine. She had interrupted Lila – the satisfaction was undeniable. Alya gave a start, but, turning towards her, she relaxed immediately and gave the noirette a one arm hug.

“’Morning, girl! You’re early!” 

She wasn’t, but the three wouldn’t know. Lila had made sure their mornings were filled with her. But in those ten minutes left before the first class began, Marinette wanted to make her presence known again.

The boys followed suit with gleams in their eyes that told Mari they really didn’t mind having her with them, but Lila’s words dripped with a honey that felt more like poison. 

Her smile only widened.

It felt somehow exhilarating to _not care_. 

Yes, Lila was there. Yes, Lila’s subtle glares made it obvious she was feeling personally attacked and offended by Marinette’s interruption. Yes, it was even more obvious Marinette didn’t really give a damn.

Old habits do die hard, though. She couldn’t bring herself to talk over the girl once she picked up where she left off, but that was a start and that alone made her feel just a little bit more brave maybe.

* * *

The day didn’t really hold any other surprises. 

The same old long rants from Chloé, same old friendly banters, same old tedious classes, same old boring duties, same old silent home… same old Marinette.

But Ladybug… Ladybug was always full of surprises and news and energy. It was on Ladybug’s watch that the interesting things happened, not on Marinette’s. 

The few free hours the night oh so sweetly provided were enough for the akuma of the day to get their closure, her newest design to make its debut and another long and pleasant banter to get started in the team’s chat.

In Marinette’s head, though, there was a riot. The moment she walked towards her friends instead of away from them something clicked.

It was true that she was walking a thin line and that any little slip from her part could bring her back to square one – or worse, but it was also true that she missed her friends and she missed being herself without hiding behind an username. The same thoughts she’d had a million times before, though now she didn’t give up on them the moment they crossed her mind. 

Instead of telling herself that was just the way it was, she considered her options, she balanced pros and cons and calculated her chances. Then made the plan of attack.

* * *

Staying up later than usual was an idea she almost regretted in the morning. Almost. But she couldn’t bring herself to when she finally had something to hold on to. 

Not being perfect was not an option, but not being perfect _with the right people_ was. Now that she thought about it seemed so obvious she couldn’t believe it had never crossed her mind before. 

Her parents were the ones in front of whom she couldn’t afford any wrong move. In front of them she was to remain the same perfect girl she was expected to be. That also meant she couldn’t take any time off from studying and practicing. 

Some of her classmates were are a little tricky, too.

But her _friends_ were something else entirely.

Stuck up, rude, immature, arrogant, condescending, selfish - none of those were her, but everybody had their first impressions and those were hard to change. Though… she didn’t have to work on all of them at once. With some it was sure to be harder than with others and that only meant she needed to take small steps. And for that she decided to try the one thing she’d never given a second thought to: being relaxed. 

It was hard to be _relaxed_ when pressure was the one thing you’d known from the very beginning – the pressure to meet all expectations, to excel at everything… to be perfect. It was hard to be _relaxed_ when nothing ever went well from the very first try, it was hard to be _relaxed_ when no one ever wanted to look beyond a pretty picture or a smile. 

Because relaxed didn’t always mean happy or content, but ready to be yourself and ready to let others see that. 

Someone _was bound_ to notice she was more than a stereotype eventually. 

And it was exhilarating. 

As for the number one enemy, Marinette decided to do absolutely nothing. 

It was no easy task to get a person to like you when they’d already made up their mind that they didn’t. If Lila never wanted to be her friend, she decided it wouldn’t really bother her, but as long as she insisted on taking way from her those who weren’t really opposed to it, she wouldn’t stay and watch anymore. 

The first step she had taken and she couldn’t wait to get to school and start taking the next.

* * *

Her plan was… not thought through enough.

Apparently… after being tensed for so long one just couldn’t… _not_ be tensed. 

In her enthusiasm to finally be relaxed around someone she became even tenser.

It was ironic, really. 

It seemed quite fit for the situation.

The entire day she was somehow more stressed out and worried she wouldn’t be able to fully take her mask off if she tried. That only resulted in her having even shorter conversations. 

It seemed that she had to take even smaller steps....

* * *

The first change she made was not a change in itself after all. It was a continuation of something that had already happened; in other words she kept seeking her friends out herself.

Every morning started to be filled with Alya and Nino and Adrien. And Lila, to her never-ending frustration.

Every morning Marinette would go towards the four and listen to them - occasionally even intervening herself - and every morning Lila would do whatever she could think of to keep the attention upon herself. what she clearly loved most was talking about herself and Marinette couldn’t really say how much of that was or wasn’t a lie, but she sure liked to make Marinette feel as miserable as possible at least just as much. Whether she talked about the last movie had seen with the others three or picked up just where she had left off a chat conversation with them, she knew just where to hit to make Mari feel as if she was just an intruder.

To her own surprise, she didn’t even think about backing down. 

If at first she only listened to them talk and respond at the occasional question someone asked trying to make her feel included, once the new week came around she started asking the questions herself. In other words, Lila didn’t monopolize the conversation anymore. It was subtle at first - a mere observation. If she were to be honest, it hadn’t even been intentional. When Lila mentioned that she absolutely loved the horror movie they had gone to see during the weekend, Marinette couldn’t help but look towards Adrien and utter a confused “I thought you hated horrors”. Lila came to an abrupt stop in her… _gushing_ about the sheer genius of the director who _could_ make such a terrifying movie and turned her full attention towards the noirette. Adrien smiled sheepishly and brought a hand to the back of his neck.

“I… do?” he confirmed, but it somehow came as more of a question. 

That was one of the first things she’d leaned about him that day when he first joined her during lunch. She remembered clearly the serious expression on his face when he told her he hated horrors with a burning passion and that he’d much rather watch the worst chick-flick ever made rather than something that would scare _the hell out of him_. 

“Nonsense. He enjoyed it.” her quick dismissal made Marinette’s frown deepen. 

Alya and Nino chose not to intervene, but the girl didn’t miss how both their gazes hardened at Lila’s statement. 

“Well…-” came Adrien’s voice– “I had heard Alya and Nino talking about it, too and Lila insisted it would be a good movie and that I’d miss out, so… yeah… I took a chance and tried it. It was… really something.”

He was obviously embarrassed and it was clear as day he had hated the experience but didn’t want to upset his friends. 

“See, Marinette? I told you, no reason to worry, Adrien’s not the scaredy-cat type of guy.”

Standing up for herself was one thing – one that could always backfire, apparently – but standing up for her friend was another entirely and the sheer fact that both Lila and Adrien were so ready to wave it off didn’t really stand well with her. She _hated_ the idea of letting the matter slide, but Adrien’s discomfort with the topic was visible, so she did the next best thing.

“Of course he’s not!” said Marinette with a piercing glare meant for Lila and only Lila, but as it turned towards the boy in question, it softened to a kind look, one that held a hint of disapproval to it. “It’s just that… you shouldn’t do something you don’t like when you have a choice.”

If her words carried a heavy load of personal experience, she chose not to dwell on it. 

Lila didn’t hesitate to pick up exactly where she left off, but not without taking the chance to make Marinette see _she was just exaggerating_.

Somehow, it had nothing on her. The only think that mattered for Marinette was the glimpse of gratitude she caught in Adrien’s eyes when he looked at her again. 

The conversation didn’t even last ten minutes, but it was a milestone nonetheless. Although the breaks didn’t give them a lot of time to talk, she took each and every second and spent it in someone’s company _participating_ in the discussion. Sure, those someones were Adrien, Alya, Nino and Chloé. And more often than not, Lila by extension.

She didn’t just hum and nod and answer question in the briefest way possible. She didn’t just stay and listen and smile or frown when she disagreed. She started talking more, she started giving more details about herself when someone asked her something, she started stating her opinions. She was still careful, of course, she took care to make everything as harmless as possible and to leave as little place for misinterpretations as she could. And for the most part, it worked. 

It helped that she started with the ones she already knew cared about her. They didn’t seem to judge her at all, on the contrary, they seemed to encourage her newfound confidence.

But still, the time she had was not enough.

It was time for another kind of change and, with no small amount of _dread_ , Marinette decided it was indeed time for the next part of her plan.

* * *

Clenching her teeth, Marinette gathered the courage she needed to finally knock at the door in front of which she’d been staying for the past 5 minutes.

Her mother’s response was as prompt and as cold as usual. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, she opened the giant door and entered her office with the head held high and the posture stiff, the way she knew all Dupain-Chengs had to be. It was hard, really, to give the impression of confidence and calculated coldness and poise when you felt neither, but acting ran in the family and she’d had almost eighteen years to practice her skills.

The greetings they shared held nothing from the warmth she’d barely caught a glimpse of when seeing Adrien and his parents interact, or even Chloé and her father. But there was no time to dwell on that. Instead, Marinette took a deep breath and uttered the words she’d been practising for a few hours now.

“Mother, I have a request.”

That did get her attention. She lifted her head and arched an eyebrow. She didn’t need to say anything for Marinette to understand that was her cue to continue. 

“I would like to spend the lunch break at school again.”

Although she made no move, although her expression remained just as cold and serious, the girl understood she expected an explication. And a good one at that. 

“I believe I have proven myself capable of maintaining a perfect performance both in school and in the others activities I take, thus, considering that I couldn’t spend the lunch hour at school anymore because of my unsatisfactory performance, I should be given the chance to prove the punishment is not necessary anymore. Moreover, spending the lunch break at school would not be a recreational period only, but also a time I could spend in the library, studying for an upcoming test or with some classmates reviewing certain materials, without wasting the time I would otherwise spend on the way home and back.”

Sabine didn’t speak immediately. She waited. Looked at her. And analysed. When she finally reached a conclusion, her behaviour didn’t change one bit, but the cold “very well” that escaped her lips was enough for Marinette to risk a small smile.

She was not finished though. 

“From now on you will spend Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at school and Tuesdays and Thursdays home as usual. The only exceptions allowed are in case of an important examination and you believe you can make better use of the free hour at school rather than at home.”

The “thank you” Marinette breathed out held more joy and warmth that she could remember her mother showing her since ever; not that it phased the woman at all. It was met with the same old “you can leave now” followed by her attention returning to what she had been doing beforehand. 

Marinette hesitated though. She didn’t leave immediately as she was supposed to and that made her raise her head once again. 

“Yes, Marinette?”

It was her chance to bring up the other topic that had been gnawing at her for a while now… but it was not the _perfect_ chance. She had already been given something, she couldn’t risk _being greedy_ and asking for more only to be deprived of both. 

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but none of them missed the faint hesitation.

“No… no. Thank you again, mother,” she said instead.

Only after she was alone behind the closed door of her room did she allow the joy to break out. The day had become so much better… and maybe everything else, too. 

That night, just because she was still too overjoyed to fall asleep, she wrote a full review of the latest fashion line and posted it three days earlier than she had initially planned to.

* * *

When the bell announcing lunch break finally rang that first Monday, Marinette was basically bouncing with barely contained excitement. Chloé left with a quick wave in her direction, going straight towards the limo already waiting for her outside, but Alya, Nino and Adrien were together, chatting beside their desks. It was quite a surprise Lila wasn’t already with them, but she seemed quite busy copying some notes from a notebook Chloé had left her. Mari couldn’t have asked for a better time.

“Hey guys!” she chimed in with a huge smile on her face. “Guess what? I’ve got my lunch breaks back” 

“Wow! About time if you ask me.” Alya’s excitement seemed to be shared by the other two, whose smiles got two times larger.

“That-” added Adrien suddenly becoming serious and rising an eyebrow- “needs a toast. So now I expect all of you to come with me home and I’ll get the toaster ready.” The groans that erupted from the other three only made the shit-eating grin brightening his face. The fact that Marinette’s was more of a giggle than a groan didn’t really help, too.

“No but really, I was serious, we need to celebrate that so whatcha say? You up for some pastries?”

“Adrien, dude, do you really need to ask?” The boy in question didn’t miss a beat in matching the flat face Nino was sporting and answering him in the same sarcastic tone.

“Nino, dude, it’s not your confirmation the one I needed.”

Judging by the look on Alya’s face, neither was hers, thought Marinette. As for herself… she could have accepted the invitation in a heartbeat had it not been for her mother… if she knew she was about to eat _sweets_ instead of being in the library… but she didn’t know, did she? And… what she didn’t know, didn’t hurt her. 

“Well I’m so not going to let you celebrate without me. Count me in.”

“Perfect!” concluded Adrien turning towards the door, but as soon as he did that, a thought seemed to cross his mind and he stopped short in his tracks. 

“Wait. Lila?” He was looking straight at her and Marinette was surprised to understand that he hadn’t been oblivious to the tension between them. 

She didn’t really want the girl there, but she was their friend however much she disliked her and she didn’t really want to make anyone feel excluded even if that someone was Lila of all people.

“Go ask her,” she shrugged as nonchalantly as possible.

Still somewhat hesitant, he did. The girl brightened at the sight of him. 

She seemed all for it until Marinette’s name was mentioned. 

“I’d like to come-” she said then, frowning- “but I’m not sure Marinette would be too glad…”

Marinette didn’t want her watching the conversation to be seen as impolite or rude, but given that Nino and Alya seemed just as interested in it as she was, she didn’t refrain herself from watching the girl’s every expression from where she was standing, near Adrien’s desk. And although all she had was a side-view, it was more than enough for her to notice the brunette’s fluttering eyelashes and slight pout that screamed falsity for her. Seeing as Adrien frowned a little and didn’t really insist, it was likely she wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“I don’t really know about that, but it’s up to you after all,” he said as politely as always. 

She ended up refusing, but not without wishing them to have fun with a _model_ smile.

* * *

The short walk towards the Agreste bakery was filled with friendly banter and laughter. And with a kind of ease Marinette had missed for so long. 

When the bell jingled announcing their entrance, Mrs. Agreste took her eyes from the costumer in front of her for a second and brightened instantly at the sight of them. 

“Kids, I’m glad to see you again! Especially you, Marinette, oh it’s been quite a while!” The bakery was quite packed, so she couldn’t get more than a few moments to greet them, but it was enough to make Marinette feel the same welcoming warmth she had the previous year. 

“Adrien, take them in and you know the rule-” she continued towards the three guests- “make yourselves at home.”

“Thank you Mrs. Agreste!” smiled Marinette, but a frown appeared on the woman’s face and in that moment before she spoke, anxiety that she’d somehow done something wrong had already made itself felt.

“Marinette-” the woman chided her kindly- “you’ve already forgotten. None of that. Call me Emilie, dear. 

“Roger that,” replied Marinette, relief flooding her. The countless lessons about manner and politeness she received as a kid were too deep ingrained on her however, and she refrained from using her first name so soon.

Adrien led the three through rooms Marinette had never really forgotten, all the way up to his own. Nothing really changed in a year - especially not the cosy atmosphere. 

“Alright, now the only thing we need is food. I’ll be back in sec!” 

When he came back ten minutes later, backpacks were thrown carelessly in a corner the three of them were seated comfortably on the floor and laughing at something Nino said – if his sheepish smile was anything to go by. 

Joining them, Adrien put down the two plates full of whatever pastries Marinette’s mind could think of and then some more. 

“I shouldn’t even be sharing these with you. You started this party without me, after all.”

His playful pout didn’t seem to touch any of them and just to prove that point, Alya didn’t wait more than a second to lean in and take a macaroon, waving the other hand in dismissal and throwing him a bored “You’ll survive.”

It was a celebration, indeed, for Marinette. A small victory that she’d somehow managed to acquire, its already sweet taste becoming sweeter by the second. 

Time didn’t really get the memo, though, and the free hour flew as if it were mere minutes. Saying their goodbyes to Adrien’s parents, the four returned to the ever-boring school, but Marinette’s heart was filled with the same warmth all day long.

The coldness and seriousness of the place she called home hit her with a renewed power once she arrived. And the emotionless voice of her mother made a stark contrast with Emilie’s sweet one. It came as quite the surprise to hear Nathalie saying her mother wanted to see her once she arrived, but she already had a vague idea about what she wanted to know. 

“Mother. Has anything happened?” asked Marinette once she found herself in her mother’s office. 

“Nothing of great importance, though I wish to know if the free hour proved effective.”

The straight to the point attitude didn’t surprise her anymore. 

“Yes, I do believe it is indeed a promising beginning. I used the free period to review some of the French literature lessons, along with three friends of mine. 

Of course, “French literature” really meant jokes and wordplays, but her mother didn’t need to know that specific detail. She still seemed to know something was not the way it was supposed to be.

“And those friends…. They are…” she didn’t need to say more for Marinette what smelled fishy there. The truth, this time, made her mouth feel dry. 

“Adrien Agreste, Nino Lahiffe and Alya Césaire.”

“I do hope they did not keep you from studying properly, Marinette.”

“Of course not, mother. They were helpful in fact. It is always easier to understand more difficult matters when working together with someone. And I do believe such an approach would be more helpful for me.”

And she really did, in fact, because that free hour spent with friends face to face, feeling like a real teenager, feeling free and happy, did more for her than an extra hour of studying ever would. 

But her mother’s low voice and clear dismissal proved she was quite doubtful, especially where her company was concerned. Her “we’ll see” made it clear there was nothing more left to discuss at the moment, but that the problem was far from solved.

* * *

In retrospection, she shouldn’t have let her guard down after those couple of weeks of pure bliss… or at least _her_ kind of pure bliss. 

Sure, everything was somehow ok. A day with her friends, a day home, a day with her friends, a day home. And repeat and repeat and repeat. No poorer grades, no added pounds, no signs of tiredness, no nothing that could make her mother retrieve the free period privilege. 

Not even Lila managed to bother her all that much. Once the shyness and _fear >_ with which she accepted defeat in the past were gone she didn’t mind just letting the girl’s allusions pass. She even joined her sometimes – in mocking herself, not in anything else. But those moments when Lila could see that nothing affected her anymore were priceless, even if just because of the girls barely contained frustration. Those who mattered were bound to see in the end that there really was no malice or arrogance or rudeness to her words or gestures, as the brunette always seemed to suggest. 

All it took was a drop of courage and optimism for her to be like herself again with the four friends she cherished so much. Somehow, even the others started opening to her again. 

And that first drop grew and flooded her to the point she believed that maybe it was time to try again and maybe her mother would finally see she was indeed the girl she’d claimed so long ago to be. 

It was that foolish hope that led her steps towards the office once again that Saturday, only, this time, holding tightly to her chest a portfolio filled with sketches and scraps of cloth. 

“What is it this time, Marinette?” asked the woman without even lifting her head. Her words held an almost imperceptible note of annoyance that made the girl’s confidence waver, but, steeling herself, she voiced the words she’d been holding in for so long. Since that last rejection. 

“Mother, I would like to discuss university.”

The choice had been made for years, really, only, hers and her mother’s had never been the same and since she was fourteen and her dreams were crushed with a few words, she’d been too afraid to say it out loud. But now the stakes were higher; another rejection was not something she could afford.

Sabine lifted her head with something akin to surprise in her eyes. 

“We have discussed it,” she said sternly. 

“Yes mother, but I have made a choice of my own. It is not only Business and Management that I want to pursue…”

“ _Business and Management_ are your future. It is not optional. You are to take charge of this company and university will prepare you. Anything else would only be a distraction.”

“I don’t want to be the head of a fashion company without having a solid base of knowledge about fashion first and I want to pursue my passion, therefore I would like to study Fashion and Design and start as a designer before becoming the head of the company.”

“Being both would prevent you from excelling at either of them.”

Marinette’s counterargument came in a heartbeat.

“But you _can_ do this, mother. You can be both and still be the best. I would have enough time to achieve such skill as well.”

“You forget that I started this company, Marinette. I have grown along with it and learnt on the way everything that I needed to know. This was a privilege you won’t have. Starting straight at the top means you will be expected to know everything already. Not to mention that when the time comes, your duty will not be only that of… _making it stay afloat_ -” she scorned- “but make it thrive, make it expand and grow even more. Starting at the top means knowing everything about the past, being anchored in the present and shaping the future. This is what you need to prepare for. You don’t have time for this and for… playing with some sketches as well. Keep in mind that being a model did not teach you fashion; if anything it is marketing and publicity you’re acquainted with. You had your chance and you chose to ignore it. Starting from scratch would be impossible right now.”

“I do understand your points mother, but I would not be starting from scratch,” she tried to explain, but it all fell to deaf ears. 

“Fashion is more than mere drawings. There is an entire history behind it, there is theory behind practice, not to mention that fashion is a form of art and art is always more than beauty; even more so when this art especially requires to be practical as well.”

It was clear Sabine was starting to get angry, but Marinette didn’t want to give up.

“I already know these things. If you looked at some of my designs, you’d see…”

“I don’t have time for your doodles, Marinette. I don’t care how much fabric you put in there to make… _that thing_ in your arms look stuffier, I don’t care how much you think you’ve improved; if when you had someone to teach you these things you still couldn’t do anything worth the time, I doubt now, after years of doing nothing, you’d be much better. This discussion is over. You can go to your room.”

“Please, mother, just take a look! You will see I did not let these years go to waste!”

“And what should I see? Copies again? Combinations of things you’ve already seen? Scraps of cloth chosen randomly because _they looked good_? I have work to do-” she snarled out already returning to the piles of papers that held her attention when Marinette entered- “I _don’t have time_ for these things. And instead of channeling your attention and energy on foolish things, you better start thinking more seriously about your future and use more of that energy for it.”

“I am! That’s why…”

“Enough, Marinette! Years ago when you said you wanted to be a designer I indulged you. You and I both know how well that worked out. I don’t want you wasting time on _dreams_ anymore. This. Discussion. Is. Over!”

Marinette had never really understood her mother. Never really got why she treated her the way she did, why she let herself get so lost in her work, why she was so rarely happy, why she was always so stubborn. And in that moment, more than ever, she wanted to understand why she wouldn’t just _look_. 

The silent anger clear in her eyes didn’t as much as touch Sabine. The fury in her steps as she finally turned around and marched towards the door most likely didn’t even reach the woman. And the profound disappoint most certainly went unnoticed. 

After all it wasn’t like the last time. It was so much worse. 

Back then at least her mother gave her a chance, sceptical as she was. 

She arranged for Nathalie to add another subject to those she was already teaching the teenager and so Marinette started learning bits and pieces about fashion. Inspiration she took from everywhere, but, ever the resourceful child, she didn’t hesitate to take in every detail of those hundreds of designs that constantly surrounded her as a model. When her mother finally took one of her sketchbooks a year later, a glance was enough for her to deem everything a waste of time. Everything she’d seen was nothing more than copies, to her – unoriginality at its best. 

If only Marinette had been home at the time. If only Sabine had taken her last sketchbook instead of the first. If only the mother had listened to the girl

She told Marinette she was to stop trying to become a designer and focus on the business side of fashion instead. She told the girl she was to start actively participating at events and galas by introducing herself to iconic faces in the industry and partaking in the conversations her parents would hold with them. She told her she was going to follow a certain path and Marinette accepted everything with a mute resentment, but although she knew her fate had been pretty much sealed at the time, she couldn’t bring herself to not love fashion and design. Thus _Miraculous_ appeared. 

At first it was all about news and trends and nothing personal altogether – a way to keep her passion alive and to keep learning. And maybe make a silent statement against her mother’s never ending control. She had taken it to heart, what her mother said. She really did think she was no good so she became even more determined to become so.

But what she was doing at the moment was not enough. 

She started writing herself. Hours upon hours of documentation made it possible for her to create themed weeks, a new designer in the spotlight every time. She’d analyse them thoroughly and take inspiration from them. And between everything she’d draw. 

She did care her mother had told her there was no originality to her sketches. She did care she’d told her she’d have no business being a designer. So she drew. She designed. And she felt herself improving more and more so the next time she’d come before the woman, there would be no more critiques. 

When more and more people started asking if she could start posting about unknown designers, she did just that and between the tens of designs she’d find or readers submitted themselves, she started posting her own too. 

It was no explosion. It was no instant success. Instead it was support and advice and progress. And a lot of patience.

And _then_ came success. 

But that was Ladybug and Marinette cherished the anonymity in spite of her wish to be acknowledged. 

There were barely twelve weeks until university admission, but time was such an illusion for a student just before the ever dreaded baccalaureate. If she wanted to have a chance at going to the university she wanted after that showdown with her mother, she needed to think fast, before the exams occupied her mind 24/7. 

She hadn’t accepted the possibility of an unavoidable, irrevocable ‘no’ and she was not about to do so anytime soon. She had worked too hard, she was in too deep to let it all go to waste. She just needed to change her course of action now that the road become ten times bumpier. 

But time was truly a thorn in her side and the more she tried to think about ways to go about… everything, the more agitated she became. Panic was not something that defined her, but sometimes panic is the one thing one can’t avoid. 

The rage she’d suppressed with her mother did not help, either. She didn’t punch everything in her way, she didn’t scream her lungs out, but rage and stress and panic and one hundred thousand ideas made her mind a mess. 

The most reasonable thing to do was to wait until she calmed down, but in that moment Marinette was anything but reasonable. So she did the next most logical thing her mind could come up with: she took her phone, bent on talking to someone.

It didn’t come as a surprise to see she already had a ton of unread messages all from the same group. Of course her partners would be using a perfect Saturday afternoon to argue about whatever random topic they could come up with…

As effective as always, an incoherent string of random letters made the group fall silent for a moment before exploding once again, the “fight” - or debate as Rena _loved_ to call it – long forgotten. 

**_How do I make my mom understand I need to go to fashion school?!!!!!!!!1?!_ **

Straight to the point and not really the answer the four probably expected after their (too) many question marks and confused inquiries, but an explanation nonetheless. 

As _helpful_ as ever, Bee’s reply was first and drenched in sarcasm. **_Talking with hee might help just sayin_**.

**_No shit : | it didnt_ **

None of them knew too much about Marinette’s personal life, but two things she did say over the time: that her mother was somewhat of a fashion figure and that she was the really controlling type. So it didn’t really surprise her to see the confused messages from Rena and Chat who didn’t understand how fashion was _not_ supposed to run in the family, given the circumstances; not to mention that everyone knew she lived and breathed fashion and it had always been a given that Ladybug would study fashion and work in fashion. But she’d never told them the lengths her mother would go to control each and every aspect of her life, and while they knew that no one other than herself was aware of “Ladybug’s” identity, they certainly didn’t know that no one in real life was actually aware of her designing skills either. To explain all that in detail would’ve taken too long and would’ve been too risky in the end, so she ended up telling them the long story… really short - **_She thinks i m useless at designing and she wants me into business_**

Ever the pragmatic one, Rena went straight to gathering up the facts. **_What have you tried so far_**

**_Talking first. she wouldn’t get no or an answer. Then I tried showing her some designs and she didn t evn want to look. She insists I need to take over the family business and I need to be ready for tat._ **

**_Isn t fashion your familys business tho_ **

She couldn’t blame Carapace for remembering a fact he’d told them herself, but she was angry and tired and frustrated and the answer to that question was really, really tricky and she really wanted someone to blame. So Carapace would do for the moment. 

**_Yeah but she doesn t want me into the fashion part. Just the managing._ **

**_Whos supposed to take care of that prt then? Didnr you say you were an only child?_ **

Chat’s inquiry was not in any way absurd. After all, Paris was full of family businesses where the ones who did the actual work also took care of the managing part, regardless of the industry they were a part of. There were countless boutiques, smaller or larger, managed by individual families. And then… there were fashion moguls like her mother who had tens of designers alone working under her…

**_…other people_ **

**_If you d be perfectly capable of doing that part too why waste money tho?_ **

…Chat had once said his family owned a bakery, but while for him the term “family business” was taken literally, for Marinette it had been outgrown quite a while ago and convincing her mother that the boy’s arguments were absolutely valid would’ve been a lost battle from the start, considering she didn’t really care how much money she gave for something as long as she deemed it an investment with potential. And hiring head designers that were not Marinette fitted quite well in that category for her. 

**_That s the thing she believes I wouldn t be capable. She says I wound t manage to be head of the company and the desining team at the same time although that s exactly what shes doing and if she can im sure I can too. not to mention that until she retires I d have enough time to lear the ropes properly. She doens t want to hear about it tho and its argjvshvs frustrating_ **

**_That sounds like a pretty big business to me. Who the hell is your mother??!?_** Not Carapace, not Chat, but Queen Bee was a good person to put the blame. She shouldn’t but she could and she wanted to. Because that was the kind of question she couldn’t really avoid. She took a moment to ponder her life choices – to be more specific, why she didn’t choose her other group of friends to talk with. Then again, to explain them she was good at designing would’ve meant showing them actual proof which in turn would’ve led to their knowing she was Ladybug and that… was not something she was ready to let out in the open.

Anonymity, as it turned out, was a hard thing to manage between friends. Internet safety, self-esteem issues, anxiety and a desperate wish of freedom and liberation from stereotypes made Ladybug a whole new entity, a person in itself. And on the other side of the coin, sheer fear of loss of friendship, of an entirely new level of judgement, of rejection and disrespect, made Marinette hide the side of herself she treasured and loved. 

And in spite of any kind of rationality, those kinds of fears were persistent. Even after years of juggling with them and confidence, love and appreciation. So she did the ne think she deemed appropriate at the moment: evading the question.

**_Dosnet matter. someone. still how do i make her see im good without her knowing im ladybug?!/11///??!_ **

**_Show her yr designs_** As rational and _doable_ Chat’s solution seemed, Marinette knew better. Not only did she know for a fact the woman knew about everything that had even at least an idea of potential in the fashion world, but she was also aware of her stubbornness - once she put her head to something, she would not give in and I she said she wouldn’t look at her portfolio, she wouldn’t.

**_She won’t friking look at anythibg i show her and her knowin im ladybug is the last thing I want. This entire blog would become a venue for her to promote the business and ladybug would be the tool… I dont want that I just want her to see im for shoot s sake I want her to letg me mke my own effin decisions_ **

**_Why wait for her to look at them herself? make her ook at them yourself : )) push them in her face until she actually looks_ **

**_I cant really do that… shed take that as “stupid rebellion act caused by bad influence” so shed hve me homeschooled and I wont get to see my friedns ever again and that’s the biggest no no ever._ **

**_…that s a little farfetched…_ **

Oh yeah, that _seemed_ farfetched indeed. But she wished it actually were too. 

**_No its not I wish it were. It took me 16 years to even convince her to let me go to an actual school…_ **

**_Wow so there are actually more people like that who thought?! But anyway here’s what propose. You do nothing. You wait and keep designing and then focus on the stupid exam and then you simply go to fashion and design._ **

Rena’s idea was so so tempting… but…

**_She’d have me drop and go to business next year_ **

**_No no actually foxy s idea is pretty good. Like you go to her and tell her somethibg like ‘hey mom I’m a poud student of fashion and design’ and you’l be 18 by the time right? and she cant fucking force you to do anything. Worst case scenario youll have to pester her to teach you how to acrtually manage the business and never leave her side unless you go to school or smthin like that.worse case scenario you move out she disowns you you be ome the best designer theres ever been sabine cheng herself wants you and yr mother will come begging for you to return. And she cant to anything about your friends anymore because she cant fucking imprison you in your own home. Or as ive said you just move out. And that’s it._ **

Marinette took a moment to reread Chat’s message. It was stupid. Completely and utterly dumb.

At first glance. 

Then it became… doable. 

Them tempting. 

It was so overly reckless and bolder than anything she’d ever done before, but Chat was right.

She was tired of doing what anybody else except herself wanted, she was tired of letting her mother especially control everything she wanted to do. She was tired. And a little rebellion wouldn’t hurt anyone except herself, so, for once in her life, she actually wanted to take that risk. 

**_I want to say it wont work but im actually tempted to put you plan in motion…_**

Chat’s answer came in record time.

**_that;s my girl_ **

**_im not your girl_** she typed rolling her eyes but a giggle left her lips. She was stressed more than ever, she still wanted to scream and punch something – preferably her mom’s face – but, paradoxically, she felt like she could breathe again.

* * *

The moment she turned 18 a month later she pressed the ‘start’ button and everything went into motion. 

First thing first, a bank account to be hers and hers alone.

* * *

The baccalaureate was exactly the hell everyone had described. 

The last year of highschool had been busy from start to finish, but those last months, culminating with the bac itself, proved to be… a deep pit of stress and work and studying and tiny breaks that weren’t nearly as long or plenty to be perfect. And stress. Did she mention stress? Because stress was definitely there. 

As for being Ladybug, that, too, became harder and harder, but she didn’t give up, but she did resume her activity to a couple of posts per month instead of a dozen or so. 

When it was all over she gathered all the courage she had and went out with her friends. She didn’t wait long enough to hear if her mother agreed with such an outing. Shouting an “I’m going out with some friends”, she went straight for the door and out she was. 

It might have been the worst idea she’d ever had. It might have been the beginning of the end, such a display of “rebellion” – read “independence”. And she might have just angered her mother a little too much before everything was ready for that final killing blow. 

But it might as well have been that little sneak peak in the future that woke up her mother form whatever dream of control she’d been entertaining. It might as well have been tat little warning that yes, she was her own person and yes, she could take her own decisions, too. 

The lecture she’d face upon returning that evening would still be worth it, though. 

No Gorilla, no Nathalie, no phone calls, no curfew, no absolutely annoying diet to worry about, no anything.

And no Lila. After Marinette became a constant again, the girl started showing less and less patience, and whatever doubts Alya, Nino and Adrien had ever had concerning her just grew up till the point Lila let her guard down and snapped at Marinette for no reason one too many times. And once they defended Marinette not her, she just started to give up and ignore them altogether, trying to take over Chloé once and for all. it proved even less effective. The girl was not stupid. She’d seen her outbursts with Marinette and she seemed to have had her own set of doubts. Lila was kind of left outside those two groups in the end…. 

And now it was just her, Alya, Nino and Adrien and an entire afternoon of too much laughter and too much cake and too much ice-cream and too much fun altogether. 

That huge _lack_ of pressure was the kind of thing that hit you in the face and you actually took notice of it. Not even the university admittance mattered at the moment for the four. All that mattered was that the baccalaureate was over and done for and that the whole ordeal turned out to be quite the success for all of them. 

Therefore some cake was in order. 

Not that Adrien’s parents weren’t thoroughly prepared, for that matter. 

Radiant smiles, warm hugs and some dreamy cake was the general atmosphere at the Agreste’s bakery, but that family was always full of surprises and Marinette was more than happy to welcome their genuine joy and excitement and _pride_. Their ability to exude such love never ceased to amaze her. 

Inevitably, university became fast enough the main topic of discussion. All of them had plan A, B and C thought out and ready to be put in motion, should the need arise, but they were confident enough that they wouldn’t need to go further than plan A; the other two were nothing more than mere formalities. Their dreams were not supposed to be dreams for too long, after all. 

Excitement was the only word that could properly describe the way Adrien talked about physics, Nino about directing movies and Alya about journalism. They were nervous, but it was a kind of nervousness that made them giddy and eager to just get it over with and know once and for all if autumn would indeed see their first steps towards that dream future. Marinette’s nervousness did make her eager to get it all over it, but nauseated was a better word than eager in her case. She wanted to get it over with so she could finally be eager. In her case, the two could not be simultaneous. 

Not that she dared say that out loud. 

She was perfectly content with just listening to the three of them and then to the inputs of the two adults, but of course they’d never want her to feel excluded and of course at least one of them was meant to turn towards her sometime. It just happened to be Mrs. Agreste this time. 

“Marinette dear, I think I don’t even need to ask at this point, but is design or isn’t it your future, after all?”

Her smile was sincere and encouraging and Marinette tried to return it before she answered. Maybe she managed to be convincing, maybe not so much. But the answer was surprisingly simple and it came easily enough. Because it was the truth and Marinette didn’t want to even try to imagine a reality where it wasn’t.

“Of course! Now it’s just a matter of days before it’s official.”

She just needed to remember her mother couldn’t control her forever.

* * *

She’d expected it but joy still spread through her lightning fast and she still couldn’t help but let out a half relieved, half excited laugh once she saw the results. 

She was in. 

She was officially a Fashion and Design student.

Or… at least almost official, there were still some forms to complete and there still was the confirmation to make, but she was there, on the list.

* * *

Contrary to what she’d first thought as her course of action, she did not plan on telling her mother anything too soon. Her only intention at the moment was to go along with her, nod and agree with everything and let her think that yes, she was studying Business until… until something happened maybe. She hadn’t thought that far, but she knew she wasn’t that into the idea of having a fight of that proportion with her mother.

In retrospective she should’ve figured things wouldn’t go her way after all. 

Because of course her mother wouldn’t trust her enough. Of course her mother would check. 

And check she did. 

When Marinette entered the house, the silly grin she’d been sporting since seeing her name up there on the list faded. There, at the top of the stairs, the still figure of Sabine Cheng seemed almost ominous. But the girl didn’t want to let that scare her once again. 

When she spoke, she let all that excitement come back and seep through her words as she gave _the big news_

Of course Sabine remained unimpressed.

“You and I both know that the issue had ever been whether or not you would pass. So tell me, Marinette, what is it exactly that you will study?”

Marinette didn’t want to hesitate; she knew her mother would be clued in immediately. But it was clear she already knew something was off. And that was enough to send chills down her spine and make her mouth go dry.

She could lie. The vague idea formed in her mind and disappeared as soon as it appeared. Was there really a point in lying when the look on her mother’s face told her there was no way out anyway?

So she did the most reasonable thing: stood straighter and told the _ugly_ truth with all the pride she felt.

“Fashion and Design, mother.”

She didn’t elaborate. There was no need and both women knew it.

One step at a time, Sabine descended the stairs. Her presence grew colder with every movement the same way the atmosphere grew tenser with every second. When only a few steps stood between the two, Sabine spoke again, the emotionless voice she’d used until then now laced with a barely concealed anger.

“In other words out little discussion held zero meaning to you.”

“No, mother. I understood your point and took it into consideration, but I chose to pursue my passion in the end. I did not want to waste these years learning about something you could’ve taught me yourself. I do want to follow in your steps, mother, but although you did not want me to study fashion, you wanted me to know more about business and I can do both, if only you let me. I can take  
business courses during these years as a fashion student and that, combined with the insight I could get from watching how the business works standing by your side would be enough to prepare me for managing it. On the other hand if the situation were to be the other way round, to get fashion courses as a Business student, I wouldn’t have been nowhere near close to becoming a full-fledged designer in this company, given that you wouldn’t have given me your support in this matter once you set your mind that I wasn’t good enough. I am first, mother. I am before anyone else on that list and that must say something to you.”

She’d never been so blunt and straight up defensive with her mother before. She had a point and she was dead set on making her see it. 

Sabine was basically exuding fury by the time Marinette finished talking and it was a veritable miracle she let her finish what she’d had to say.

“The only think it tells me, Marinette, is that they read your last name. I couldn’t care less about that list, because it won’t matter in a few days anyway. We will do some damage control and you will start the school year as a Business student as we planned.”

She turned around, not waiting for Marinette’s response, but she gave one anyway. The ‘no’ escaping her lips might as well have left an echo, an imprint in the mansion’s walls.

For one second Marinette thought her mother would stop, would turn around and see reason. Her steps did falter. For a second. Nothing more. So Marinette continued. And let the fire in her finally sparkle to life. 

“No. I will start the school year as a Fashion student whether you like it or not. I’m eighteen, mother, you can do nothing without my signature there. And there won’t be one. This is what I want and for once in this eighteen years listen to what I want and give a _shit_ about it. Because it’s that or nothing. Don’t think for one second that I will stay here and let you control my life the way you want because I am not a puppet and I can take my own decisions.”

Sabine did turn around then. Not that there was any noticeable change in her demeanour, for that matter. 

“What makes you think you’ll last, Marinette?! I’ve seen what you can do. You are not cut out to be a designer. The sooner you understand that, the better it’s going to be for you. So stop being so immature and see reason!”

“You’ve seen nothing, mother.” Marinette felt tired. Tired of a pointless argument she knew her mother would never admit to having lost. So maybe it was time to actually let it all out after all. 

_Go big or go home_

Except she’d probably not have a home after that. 

But she’d have a promising future. And she was ready to go for that any day, any hour, anytime. Because home meant family after all and she’d come to understand a long time ago that her friends filled that spot quite well.

It was strange – not to care anymore. 

And maybe liberating. 

Maybe she liked it.

“And who knows-” she continued- “maybe if I won’t be a designer after all, I’ll be a fashion critique. Considering that I’ve been critiquing your work for months and people actually listened and _agreed_ I might have just the potential.”

Both Marinette and Sabine knew the girl in question had never done such a thing. But both knew, too, there was only one person, one young lady, who did it. _Anonymously_. 

And the look on the girl’s face left no room for doubt.

Really, it was funny how her mother had such an impact upon her life. Everything truly important seemed to have begun with her. And then it was sad that more often than not it began with her being unreasonable and controlling a pain altogether. The determination to get better. The blog. The “could’ve been better” section. 

That last one involved the critiques. Of course, just another thing she did being angry with her mother and her arrogance. Because she good. But not perfect. 

So she started writing entire articles pointing out flaws. And redesigning. At first just for the _Sabine_ brand. Then for more. Because the people actually appreciated her opinion and they wanted more. 

And just as everything began with her mother, it seemed everything would end with her too. or maybe it was just another beginning… but… disguised.

“Get out of my face.”

It was impressive how she managed to rein in her temper, really. Her look was murderous. Her voice was calm.

Marinette almost wanted to laugh. Because she sure as hell wanted to cry and she needed something to distract her from that. And laughter seemed fit. 

But she didn’t. Neither laugh, not cry. 

She was still her mother’s daughter, whether she liked it or not, and she’d done her homework and she knew such a display was not fit for a Dupain-Cheng. Or… rather _in front of a Dupain-Cheng_

Or just a Cheng maybe. 

Or just her mother.

Instead she just kept going.

And she might have just been provoking her, but she honestly didn’t know what else to do. For once, she wanted to have the last word.

She was tired, but there was so much adrenaline pumping through her veins.

“Because that sure would make everything be alright! No, mother. It’s a fait accompli so just accept it already. Not everything goes your way all the time.”

“Get out of my face, Marinette-” she started again, pointing out every word –“or get out of my house! Go to you room! I _will_ discuss this with your father and…”

“And father will take your side-” the girl interrupted her with a humourless snort –“because he loves you too much for his own good. Discuss it all you want, but just see things as they are for one second, mother! For one second!” 

Only then did she leave. She went past her mother, up the stairs and straight to her room and against the strong urge that made her want to completely smash that door closing it behind her, she didn’t. She closed it silently and slid down on it, head between the kneed and a swirl of conflicted emotions fighting for attention and overwhelming her completely. 

It was… said and done. Literally.

She would’ve never pictured herself standing up to her mother like that, not even in her wildest dreams… but… she was tired. 

She… she was tired and she wanted to live her life the way she wanted. 

Lifting her head towards the ceiling, she took in a deep breath. And got out her phone.

Chloé answered as quickly as ever, as bubbly as ever.

She dived straight into the matter.

“Can I crash at yours for a while?”

She was the only option really. Alya crossed her mind, but she had a big family, she didn’t want to intrude or to be a bother. And the boys… they were… boys. It would’ve been weird to basically live with them even if just for a couple of days. But it was actually ok. She knew Chloé’d say yes and she actually liked spending time with her. The explaining part she didn’t really like. 

By the sound of it, she said that just as Chloé opened her mouth to say something herself. She hesitated and Marinette could almost see the frown on her facing just by the tone of her voice. 

“… I guess? I’m all for it but will your mom be okay with it…?”

“It’s… complicated…” she tried. “When can I come?”

“Um… anytime, really, but Mari, you ok over there?”

She didn’t even want to try to imagine how she sounded…

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll explain everything when I get there. Does and hour or so from now work for you?”

“Sure. You know where to find me.”

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to get everything ready.

She started with clothes. The biggest trolley bag she had sat in the middle of the room full with clothes and shoes in less than forty minutes after she started. She didn’t need more than twenty to stuff a backpack too, all her sketchbooks occupying almost the entire space. Then there was the laptop bag where her phone, chargers and headphones found their place just as well. And as a final touch, the little purse she almost never left without. 

She was ready to leave. All she needed to do was talk to her mother. 

She decided to leave everything there, instead of bringing them down directly. Her mother deserved that after all, to be announced properly before she left. 

When she entered the office Sabin was seated at her chair, just as always. Only this time she was not working, her undivided attention set on Marinette.

“What do you want now, Marinette?” she asked.

It seemed that coldness was still a permanent feature of hers.

“I think it’d be better if I left for a while, mother. For both of us.”

A beat of silence.

“And where do you suppose you’ll live? I won’t supply you with the money to stay at a five stars hotel, I hope you know that.”

“I’ve been looking for an apartment for a while already. I’ll spend a few days with Chloé until I make up my mind. As for the money, I won’t need it. For one, I have my own. Not to mention that I fully intend to split the cost of the apartment with a roommate and find a part time job.”

The fierceness and determination in her voice almost made her sound like her mother. Almost. Arrogance was not there though, and that made the difference. 

“You wouldn’t last a week.”

“Then I’d return.”

“You have already made your bags.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t come begging me for help.”

Marinette took a moment to just look at the woman in front of her: petite but strong; hot tempered, but cold. The woman she could become if she could maybe become if she let it happen.  
“I won’t.”

* * *

Chloé’s ecstatic expression melted away into confusion the second she saw the luggage Marinette carried.

“Wow you came quite… prepared” she tried. The other girl shrugged, the corner of her lips lifting in an attempt at a smile.

“I guess you can say so. I promise not to bother your for too long though.”

“As if you could ever be a bother! Don’t make me laugh, Mari! And don’t just stay there! Come in!” she hesitated for a second, just watching her friend as she deposited the huge trolley in a corner and left her backpack and laptop bag on the couch. “Though… I kinda feel like I’m… missing something here…?”

A passing grimace went unnoticed. But the answer was clear enough.

“I may or may not have just moved out.”

The silence that followed was tale-telling just as well. 

“You,” Chloé managed after a few seconds.

Finally turning towards her again, Marinette lifted a hand to the back of her neck in a sheepish gesture and tried a meek laugh.

“Yep. Me. So… Again, sorry for the inconvenience, but I swear I won’t stay for too long, just a while, really, a few days I mean. I’ve been looking for an apartment for a while now, anyway, now it’s just a matter of finding a roommate and actually choosing the place. Or anyway, something like that. I haven’t really thought it through yet. But again, just a few days.”

“Oh no. nope. Don’t even think about it! You’re staying here for as long as you need! You might as well stay until uni begins. _At least_. By then you’ll have everything sorted out for sure.”

“You’re the best, Chloé!” she allowed herself to sigh in relief. And maybe, just maybe, breath normally again.

“You do know you’ll have to tell me the whole story, right?”

“I didn’t expect anything less.”

* * *

**_I can’t believe I’ve actually moved out like holy hell_ **

…Marinette did like capturing the attention with unexpected messages, yes. Sue her. So what? It always worked when she needed it and at the moment, she really needed to talk to someone who knew the other half of the story, too.

**_Like… because you wanted to or your mom did actually throw you out of the house cause… like wtf_ **

Rena did never disappoint after all.

**_Nonono btu man did we fight!!! And then at the end I just told her it was better if I left for a while and she kind of… agreed. Not easily, but she did and now I m out of there and im actually happy lol_ **

**_Im soooo proud of you bug. Now we really neeed to celebrate thiiiiiis and you knooooooow iiiiit_ **

Chat was the one who always insisted they should meet. They always found a reason _not to_ but lately the anonymity had lost part of the charm it had in the beginning. It was almost boring… and  
the way denials came harder and far less determined mad it pretty much obvious that all of them were starting to actually consider the possibility of meeting in real life. Still… she worried. She knew she  
didn’t really have a reason to, but that didn’t stop her nonetheless. 

**_Silly cat :3 maybe we will but enough about me though. How did it work for you guys? The results were…_ **

**_What little trust I feel personally offended lb. a qyeen like me not to obtain what she wnats??!_ **

**_A queen like you shouldn’t make such mistakes bee. Or shoud I say qyeen B? :))))))))_ **

**_The moment we meet i will personally skin you cat : |_ **

**_Guys guys let the girl have her answeeeeeers cause soon enough the biggest reporter in all of paris will be the one who ll ask you thequestoons and you wont be able to evade anymore  
muahaha_ **

Of course Rena made it! She was practically made for journalism! That didn’t make Marinette any less excited for her friend, anyway. 

**_As a future connoisseur of law and soon to be proficient persuader, my dear fox, I assure you it will be a piece of cake for me to evade your questions and look fabulous at the same time. Like the queen I am!_** Snorting slightly, Marinette couldn’t help but add a little comment just as Rena’s appeared.

**_(*points for the grammar*) congraaaaaaaats_**

**_High five queenie ; )_ **

**_Ladies ladies, you can fight all you want but let the science speak. You are talking to a future physicist after all. and science says thatg relative as reality may be, you still cannot high five_ **

**_Chat. dude. we all know music is the only language after all. and don’t wreck our day with your science stuff I thought it was finally over_ **

**_Nope_ **

**_actually… works for me. Go for it and if you get famous I ll make the film about you :))))_ **

**_YoU and ladybug love offending people… what do you mean if. When bro, when. And I ll gladly let you d o it as long as lb plays the genius s sweetheart._ **

**_im all for it cara but tell me when you find the genius so I can prepare myself mentally to console a sobbing chat so he can bear it during the filming lol._ **

**_…you are one mean bug and I hate you._ **

**_jk you know I love you buuug_ **

A fond chuckle escaped her lips and the equally fond “silly kitty” came out in a soft whisper. Not soft enough for her to be the only one who heard it, however. 

“Since when do you have a kitty?”

Chloé entered the room just in time to hear Marinette’s chuckle and the nickname escaping her lip. And the familiarity of it was too striking… though it hadn’t quite clicked yet. 

Lifting her head, Marinette didn’t wipe away the fond smile on her lips. 

“Oh I don’t have one. It’s just a nickname. I swear that boy’s too much like a cat for his own good.”

But then it did click. And who cared she’d been hungry up till then when she may or may not have had one of her best friend just under her nose for so long. 

“I guess I understand…” she trailed off glancing at the phone in her hand. Hers didn’t vibrate, it was still on silent, but Marinette’s did. Quite often. “I wanted to tell you something but let me shoot a quick text first, ok?” and she didn’t even wait for her ok before she turned on her phone, opened the group chat and wrote a simple “look up lb.” 

If Marinette were who she thought she was, she’d know. If not, well, literally nothing happened. 

But Marinette did let out a thoroughly confused ‘huh’ and she did look up. 

And Chloé straight up dropped the phone in her hand.

* * *

“You went and critiqued you mom’s lines.”

“That I did.”

Chloé’s flat tone showed the exact amount of incredulity she was dealing with, all the while Marinette’s barely contained smug expression showed exactly how amusing she found the whole situation. 

“You redesigned some pieces.”

“Yep,” she confirmed, popping the ‘p’ 

“But you’re… _Marinette_ ” Chloé finally cried, earning a raised eyebrow from said girl. 

“…yes?”

“Noooo… but… like… you’re the most obedient girl Paris’ ever seen! You’re the last person anyone would ever expect a rebellion from? Where did that badass confidence come from and why didn’t I know anything about it until now?!”

“That’s why _Ladybug_ did all those thigs and not _Marinette_. I’m still me, Chloé. I only have that confidence when… no one knows it. That I’m me, that is.”

“I call bullshit. As Ladybug was saying earlier, you had the quite the fight with your mom. We both know your mom. Having a fight with her takes serious guts. Like holy bees is that woman intimidating! How the hell did you manage to confront her?! And make her let you leave, too! Which makes me remember… the whole story, miss bug. Now. ” 

Marinette’s expression turned sheepish.

“I may or may not have told her I’m Ladybug in a very indirect but obvious way.”

“…The whole story, Marinette.”

* * *

They’d planned to meet since before the actual exams – a small get-together, just the four of them; a celebration of sorts. For having entered their dream universities (because of course they would), for having got out alive from all that stress and agitation (because who would ever take _that_ for granted). The venue – Adrien’s bakery, as always. The promise of an unlimited supply of sweets and cake and _macaroons_ sure as hell was tempting, not to mention that Marinette loved that place to the moon and back and the excited “perfect” she’d let slip a fraction of a second after hearing the suggestion influenced the decision a liiiitle bit. 

So one day after all of them knew the results, Adrien greeted them at the door with the brightest smile. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. The same amount of giggles, the same amount of playful banter, just a little more _relief_ floating in the air than usually. That is, until Marinette mentioned the latest development in her life. Things escalated quickly from there. 

“What’s up with parents and university choices?!” cried Alya once Marinette was done telling the how her mom was beyond angry with her choice and how she finally moved out.

“I thought your parents agreed with journalism?” asked Nino with a frown.

“No, no, they do, but I was not talking about me. There’s this girl I know who’s in the exact same situation as Marinette. She even…-” but she stopped abruptly and, with a frown of her own, turned towards Marinette – “…a fashion student, too.”

Something had clicked in Alya’s head and Marinette was pretty scared to figure out what. 

“Tell, Mari, what did your mom want you to study?”

“…Business?”

“Aha…-” she confirmed- “Mari, I remembered I needed to tell you something really, really important. Like… right now.” She didn’t have time to even make a move to get up, because Adrien din’t waste time to intervene himself.

“Nope, you two stay right here because I’m pretty invested in this discussion right now. And by the way, when will you finally show us your designs, Mari? You’ve always said you needed to perfect them, but now you know you’re good. We’re dying here!”

Alya squinted her eyes at Adrien but soon enough turned back to Marinette, nodding. “Sunshine here’s got a point. When can we finally see?”

 _Not now not anytime soon_ she thought. “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m being interrogated?” she tried instead, laughing half-heartedly.

“Neh, but you know how curiosity killed the cat,” winked Adrien.

Marinette’s confusion only grew. She was too blinded by the panic of accidentally outing herself somehow to see the painfully obvious hints being thrown left and right. Alya didn’t, though.

“Oh but satisfaction brought it back alright.”

Alya and Adrien were looking at each other with a thousand question burning in their eyes. Marinette was still frowning at the pair when Nino burst out with amusement clear in his voice and laughter barely contained.

“Oh my god! Whoever said turtles are the slow ones…!” and he promptly fell on his back, literally guffawing. 

The questioning glances from earlier turned into pure surprise and Alya could do was say a slow “I did not expect that” before letting the shock morph into amusement and joy. 

Adrien turned his eyes away from his two laughing friends to look at Marinette who watched him in turn with widened eyes and a slightly open mouth.

If the hints hadn’t been obvious enough up till then, their reaction were too strong for everything to be mere coincidence. She couldn’t miss it in the end. 

“What happened, my lady? Cat’s got your tongue?” Adrien smirked at her and in her still slightly confused – and amazed – state, Marinette couldn’t help but let her thoughts spill out. Or at least she would have, if revelations ever ceased coming once after another in a too short span of time.

“Wouldn’t I wi… oh my god! “ she came to a sudden halt, only to continue with the whiniest voice they’d ever heard her use – “I’ve been rejecting _you_ for _you_ for the last four years!”

If possible Adrien’s smirk grew, while Marinette’s already pink cheeks turned a deep shade of red.

“Nino –” stage-whispered Alya, the glint in her eyes too fox-like –“get the popcorn. I quite like where this is going.”

Nino just shook his head still smiling as Adrien shot an almost whispered “me too, me too,” eyes never leaving Marinette’s. Embarrassed, she hid her head in her palms. “Where’s B when you need her –” came her muffled voice – “she’d make you all shut uuuup!” 

“That can be solved, of course -” started Alya, _helpful_ as ever- “Nino, dear, weren’t you so proud of having figured it out before us, earlier? Any ideas on who she is?”

“Oh no,no,no, I was just proud of getting it before Mari did. Don’t look at me!”

“You’ll just have to wait then, Mari-” she laughed- “maybe she’ll want to tell us, too. Do continue, though. You were saying something about Adrien, I think?”

The boy in question seemed all too eager to hear what she had to say, but Marinette, never lifting her head from her hands, continued with her previous line of thought, determined to not make a fool out of herself anymore. Especially not in front of crush, especially not because of her crush. 

“I already know who she is, though.” 

And that’s how surprise makes a comeback, it seemed. 

“…How?” dared Alya.

 _And there goes the plan…_ Marinette thought resigned. “…I let something slip with her, too. Want me to call her?”

“I’m curious, go ahead!”

“That’s Adrien’s job, Ni…” she mumbled before getting the phone and dialling Chloé’s number. She answer was prompt and quick, as always.

“Hey, Chlo… um… remember our little revelation? Can you come to Adrien’s bakery?... um… I kinda found the rest… yeah….”

They couldn’t hear what the girl on the other side of the phone was saying but considering Marinette’s reaction she knew Adrien. And considering the nickname, everybody knew her, too.

Alya hesitated a moment after Marinette hang up. “Chlo… as in Chloé? As in… Bourgeois?”

“Yep,” she answered popping the ‘p’ and letting herself fall to lay on her back. “She said she’ll be here in twenty.”

“Holy… cats… Chloé Bourgeois actually _agreed_ to come _here_!? Are we talking about another Chloé Bourgeois or something because the one I know would never step in my bakery if she had a say in it…”

Adrien was obviously kind of shocked. Alya, too. And Nino. That is… until Nino burst into laughter much like the first time, managing a breathless “of course she is”.

Marinette couldn’t help but start laughing herself. And the others couldn’t help but join. When Chloé came she found them on the floor putting together scraps and pieces they’d gather throughout the time but only now truly made sense of. 

She figured out quickly what had just gone down. 

They were all hesitant at first, but now that they’d seen it, they couldn’t really unsee it. And maybe it was quite weird for Adrien and Alya and Nino to think of Chloé as a _best_ friend, but thinking of Queen Bee as such came naturally, and the images of the two girls merged with one another surprisingly fast. Chloé was going through the same process herself. Because of Marinette’s influence and at her insistence, too, she’d tried approaching her classmates even before the end of the schoolyear, but now, after just a few hours, she could undoubtedly say that Adrien, Alya and Nino, three _mere acquaintances_ , were more, so much more, because they sure as hell were her friends and that… changed a lot of things for her. 

Watching the four interact, Marinette couldn’t help but smile. 

She’d always been somewhat scared of what the change would bring. She hated to think that maybe her friends would want to cut ties with her once they knew, maybe even cut ties with each other, not just with her. She hated to think she could lose it all just because. But the change came unexpectedly and she’d had a front row seat for all the reactions. And things were… good. Were awesome. Were perfect even. 

Her own laughter came easier than ever, she’d never felt herself lighter and she’d never had so much fun just being herself. Because now she could truly be herself. The four of them knew both parts of her and they were still there and still bantering and laughing and teasing each other to no end. And if even Chloé managed to feel at ease and behave as she did when it was just the two of them… well, that spoke volumes in itself.

She loved it, every second of it. 

And if she and Adrien were standing just a little closer than usually, and if their hands maybe touched just a little bit… well, that only made her love it even more.

She couldn’t help but sneak quick glances at him and more often than not, that only meant she’d catch him looking at her too. She’d blush and smile and he’d do the same. And they’d both return to the conversation only to find themselves looking at each other again and again and again. That is… until Alya made sure to complain loud and clear they’d run out of pastries.

Adrien jumped at the occasion to leave for a moment and _subtly_ offered Marinette to come with him and help. He hadn’t even finished asking her when she started rising to her feet.

They went downstairs in silence, even made some small talk with Emilie and Gabriel as they filled two plates with the pastries ordered, but just before going up the stairs towards Adrien’s room, the boy seemed to gather all his courage and catch Marinette’s hand, silently asking her to stop or a moment. He turned towards her and opened his mouth as if to say something, but the two plates were somehow getting in the way. The few seconds it took to put them away on one of the stair’s steps were frustratingly long, but once it was done, the two of them had each other’s undivided attention. 

Gulping, he finally voiced his thoughts:

“Um… Well… you know how… How Chat’s always been… well, flirty with you and… stuff and well, I just wanted you to know that he… I, I’ve never lied about anything, but if you wanted me… he… me to stop, I would, really. But you know, Ladybug’s always been the most… I don’t know… one of the most… interesting, _complex_ persons I’ve ever known, and with her being you, everything became a thousand times better. Because you’re you, and you’re awesome with or without being Ladybug and you’re brilliant and smart and beauti… um well, yeah, but, you never really let your emotions show and Ladybug always does and that makes you, you a thousand times better and well I thought about what you kinda said earlier and… um, if you want to, but just if you want, really, maybe we could… go… out… sometime?” he almost winced as he said the last words, clearly expecting something along the lines of a rejection and bracing himself for it. But Marinette… she remained speechless for a moment. Then her lips stretched into an infectious smile and her arms went around him in a tight hug that could only mean a very loud “yes”, but she really didn’t want to take any chances.

“I… very much want to –” she mumbled into his chest– “and I’m really sorry for making you doubt me, because you really shouldn’t –” because of course Marinette would pull a classic _Marinette_ and start blabbering just like Adrien had done– “I’ve always liked Chat Noir, but at first I really didn’t know if I should trust a stranger on the Internet, than I didn’t know if that was just the way you were or ifyou really meant it and then _Adrien_ got into the picture and I got the biggest, most embarrassing crush on him – on you – and it didn’t feel fair to lead you – Chat you – on when I had feelings forthis other boy and it didn’t feel fair to even like Chat like that, even though… you might have clawed you way into my heart after a while somehow…”

She was glad her face was buried in his shirt and he couldn’t see the impossible red that took over her face. On the other hand it was her complete loss she couldn’t see absolutely radiating smile that spread across his. But Adrien wanted to share the sheer joy he was feeling at the moment with her. He moved a little and picking up his cue, she slowly lifted her head. They didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but they didn’t need to. Their eyes made all the conversation needed. 

Neither of them could say who leaned in first, but at a certain moment, their lips met. A little clumsy, maybe a little unexperienced. Maybe the smiles ruined the whole thing a little bit. But it was perfect through and through. 

After the first kiss, came the second, and the third… and the blissful act would’ve been repeated at least as many times if not for the cough that so rudely interrupted them. The two teenagers sprung apart and turned toward its source only to be met with the sight of a very amused and very excited mother who held a phone that was obviously filming. 

Marinette turned instantly the colour of a veritable ladybug, while Adrien, just a little bit less red, tried to say something only to start coughing for real. 

Mrs. Agreste typed something and then put the phone away in a pocket to take instead a plate full of cookies from nearby. 

“Fresh out of the oven. I thought you’d want some, but I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt the two of you just yet,” she winked, handing Adrien the plate. “And Marinette, dear, come here more often now. You know we’d love seeing you more. I’m so glad Adrien’s finally woken up from his obliviousness!” she added, hugging one very mortified Marinette. And with that, she turned around and left as if nothing’d happened. 

The two looked at each other still red and still very much embarrassed. With a very appropriate “oh my god” from Marinette, the two promptly burst out laughing. Because of the ridiculousness of it all maybe, or the relieved feeling, or the joy. Maybe all three and some more. And with a final peck, they took the plates and went back to the friends who were sure to wonder what took them so long.

“Sorry for taking so long –” started Marinette –“Adrien’s mom wanted us to take some fresh cookies, too…” 

“Mhm…” nodded Alya barely containing a smirk. 

Adrien had a pretty good idea about what she knew and didn’t knew, but he decided to take a chance anyway and go along with Marinette’s story. “…and we waited there a little longer.” 

“Mhm…” 

The raised eyebrow confirmed his suspicions. 

“She sent you the video, didn’t she?” he sighed, resigned. 

“Mhm...” 

Marinette and Adrien took back their seats as the three burst out laughing clearly very amused by their even bigger mortification. Red might as well have become a permanent colour for their faces by now. 

“She’s still too good for you, but if she’s happy, I’ll let it slide, Agreste,” added Chloé, needing to make it clear that she was still Marinette’s best friend above anything else. 

“Don’t be a buzzkill, Chlo,” he shot right back, throwing a hand over Marinette’s shoulders and holding her close. 

It was something new; that was an understatement. Everything was new. But all five of them were pretty sure they could get used to it in no time, because after all, they had each other so much closer now,and the kind of bonds they’d formed, those were basically indestructible, no matter how many top designer wanted to keep them under constant watch or mean girls to get between them. 

And for the first time in her life, Marinette didn’t just feel happy and content, but free, too. She felt as if everything was possible right then and there, alongside those few people. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? How was it? I love hearing from you and feedback makes my day a little brighter, especially comments. So tell me if you like it - or not - and maybe why.  
> I don't know when the next chapter will come out, but following the same pattern, it'll be back from the other's perspective and you'll see some introspective in Marinette's life.
> 
> [tumblr](https://valiantlyjollynightmare.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo? Comments are always appreciated and so is constructive criticism, and please keep in mind that English is not my first language. And while we're at it... I really need a beta reader... anyone out there who'd like to volunteer (I promise it would be better than it was for Katniss)? Please message me if you'd like to offer your help. You can find me here https://www.tumblr.com/blog/valiantlyjollynightmare, or here https://ro.pinterest.com/ioanaist10/


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